Our fireworks evening was a great success, which can be attributed mainly to our sticking with some lame 4ft high fountains, crackers and smoke bombs, and letting the neighbors provide the rockets. Which were loud and many. Our neighborhood was lit up as well as any public show, minus the nasty and probably unsafe fairground. The kids were excited and probably had their latest night ever.

It was all WIN!

And then, this morning, as oil starts to wash inland in Lousiana and the first oil balls wash up on Texas shores, comes news of this:

Seems like some of those BP losers thought they were still playing that old game from their childhood, complete with chump change oil cleanup bills.

Well, well. How about that then.

Today we went to buy fireworks from one of those roadside stands. Actually, we went to buy fireworks from Wally World, but after 20 minutes of roaming and a shopping cart full of blank CD-ROMs, a 12 pack of beer and a Wictor (OK, mostly full of a Wictor) we discovered that particular mega-mart was not selling fireworks, and we gave up.

So we told the children that we would go to a public display instead. Then we happened to pass the field from where said display would be viewed and were horrified to see that they were setting up a fairground. A small, horrible, overpriced fairground. The type of magic fairground that kids absolutely have to line up to ride. And no, just one ride will not do, and when one of them sees an understuffed, dusty purple dog on display major cases of The Whines ensue and suddenly the night becomes all kinds of stressful.

Of course, we could say “No” but it is much easier to bypass the wailing and determine up front that we will not, after all, be going to the public fireworks display because it will be “too muddy”. We will, instead, we proclaim, go buy fireworks from a roadside fireworks stand. Ooh, exciting.

And also slightly intimidating, but we could not change our minds yet again, so we parked the car and unloaded the kids and made our way to the stall.

Surprisingly, we found it manned by a group of maybe 17 year old boys. Which suddenly explained the hordes of teenage girls channelling Carmen Electra draped across the counter as we arrived. Thankfully, they disappeared, taking their visible panties with them,  and made room for us to goggle the fireworks, of which there were confusingly many. The teenage boys were polite, patient, knowledgeable and happy to impart advice such as “you’re not supposed to hold it in your hand but everybody does”. They gave us lots of free extras. It was a pleasant choosing experience.

And then we tried to pay and you know that old joke “How many … does it take to change a lightbulb?”  Well, to work out what we owed for our five token fireworks, it took three.

One to jab ineffectually at the calculator and give up after he “oh yeah, pushed the times button by mistake hahaha”. He then tried to work out the total on paper.

Two to look over his shoulder, point out that he should start with the ones, and then give us the sum of the ones as the total.

Three to come along before I had managed to pay the hugely diminished sum, and work out the true total in his head.

Oh, party pooper Number Three!

Later the Daddy and I talked about the nice young men and what great customer service personas they had and how the most shocking thing was not that they could not do long addition on paper, but that they could not use a calculator.

And then The Daddy pointed out that rather than stupidity or under-education, they had maybe just been smoking.

And I am holding onto that thought…

…I find it strangely reassuring.

The Wictor:

Why Spongebob lives in a pineapple?

Why the Simpsons are yellow?

Why A-Zs have the alphabet?

Why pork has pig in it?

Not draw on the furniture? Why?

Is this your newchair?

Why you have a newchair?

Did you put your old chair in the trash?

Your old chair was it broken?

Your old chair was it broken because of your big bottom?

*****************************************

T-Bot(seriously): I have the hiccups …

…  A student at school had the hiccups today  …

…  I must have caught them from her.

Baby Sister: T-Bot, did you touch her hands????

T-Bot: No. But she was sitting at my lunch table.

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Mommy? Mommy? Why are you laughing?

My baby is a genius … at backwards writing.

… and also psychologically scarred at the thought that a jellyfish might one day eat a train.

Also, blood. There has been a lot of it recently and it is traumatic. Blood on his leg-elbow from falling over. Blood on his chin from being pushed over. Blood on his finger after he pulled off a hangnail, leading him to bolt terrified from the TV room, screaming “There’s red on me! There’s red on me!”

He seems not to care that Cars bandaids cost $1.89 a packet. He just likes to replace them.

Meanwhile here is a photo of one of my all-time favorite foods:

Just above a picture of The Daddy’s most hated food:

I have found away around his strict ban: Secret Rhubarb Lunches. With the windows open. Then I brush my teeth. He is none the wiser.

Unfortunately not possible on weekends. We all have our cross to bear.

This weekend, however, my thoughts strayed from rhubarb. First we had this:

Made more exciting by torrential rain when the new roof was not quite finished. We all know I love a little drama, so why not?

In the end, it was all good, by which I mean we didn’t have to strategically position any buckets. No workers slipped off, and only 3 small bits of plaster fell off the ceiling from all the banging and thudding up there. Our new roof looks good. You know, the same but … um .. blacker. Although I am assured it will now be much less likely to leak and also cooler in summer.

Saturday afternoon the children and I celebrated the completion of the roof with a trip to a Folk Life Festival organized by our local school district and sponsored by the Big Yellow Arches. I know, right? With a pedigree like that it had to be a sad cruddy commercialized affair and a waste of an afternoon.  But I wanted to kill time and just the drive there and back would relieve me of a good 30 minutes, 30 minutes not involving TV or computers or shopping or eating or playing in the yard with the leftover building materials.

It turned out to be one of the best afternoons out I have had with my children, anytime, anywhere - and yet more proof that you should never judge a book. As if you need any more proof (and I obviously do). Just about every pioneer craft or activity  you can think of was represented - corn husking, cheese making, black powder firearms,  homing pigeons, blacksmithing, woodworking, horse shoeing, lassoing bulls, spinning, dancing, bee keeping, quilting, tin punching, cooking over an open fire… We chose to make rag dolls, paint gourds, mold models out of clay and write with nib and ink. We touched baby chicks and the kids each got to take an egg from underneath a chicken (the eggs have nothing printed on them, but still I am suspicious - surely their hens aren’t that prolific. The children don’t seem to care.) My favorite - we touched a snake and a baby alligator. My first time. The best description I could come up with for the way they felt was “handbaggy”.

Of course during all this I took exactly ZERO photos for posterity. Give me a break, I am a child wrangler, not a photographer. Someone give me a lasso and let me tie them to a tree and then I will manage a photo without losing one. Here are some pictures of the dolls instead. The one without the face is called “Really”. The one with the face doesn’t yet have a name but privately I am calling her “Scary”.

(Baby Sister may not grow up to be an artist…)

Not sure whose face is scarier here, but the doll is a big hit.

Oh, and you want to know where is the T-Bot’s doll? Well, he spent his time slaving over a love note instead. Immortalized by yours truly in grainy, blurry detail:

The big museums in town could learn a lot from today’s festival. Not at all a bad afternoon out for a grand total of $5.  And in the end, there wasn’t even a Big Mac in sight

Just in case you thought things might be getting boring here Inzaburbs, yesterday evening, right after I finished up a meeting discussing colors for our new roof (oh! the decadence!), there was an almighty din overhead.

And then guess what flew right over our yard?

Well, this being Suburban Texas, it could have been a vulture.

Or an enormous owl the likes of which swooped down and tried to pick up Baby Sister when she was two.

Maybe the Mockingbird,  the state bird of Texas?

If it was one of those super noisy private planes I wouldn’t be blogging it. Those goddamn oil billionaires invade our airspace all. the. time.

Close though. It was …

… a Flying Fortress.

Well, The Daddy found it exciting anyway

(PS: Just last week, we possibly also saw one of these. )

1. Things Fit in a RAV-4

This morning we took the Mad Whip to “The Park without the Playground” (as opposed to “George Bush”, “George Bush with the Playground” and “Daddy’s Park” which are all totally different experiences). We were worried about the RAV-4 being smaller than the Explorer as we tried to cram in the customary 3 kids bikes, two scooters and a Wave Board. They all fit. They never fit like that in the Explorer.

2. Cheapest Mid-Life Crisis Vehicle Ever

No, not the RAV-4. The Wave . It was the T-Bot’s birthday present, but it is The Daddy who has become the Wave-Master. He likes to wiggle his way past us shouting in a mock California-Surf-Dude voice “THE WAVE!“. As he did this at the almost-deserted park this morning I yelled back “I don’t think you are quite at the stage where 19 year old girls are going to be throwing themselves at you!”.

We turned the corner and guess who was standing there, open-mouthed.

Yes.

A gaggle of 19 year old girls.

3. Un-co? Try Ice Skating!

I have been promising Baby Sister ice-skating for such a long time. This weekend we finally made it to the rink. After all, she is about to turn 6.

Baby Sister is one of the most uncoordinated people I know. She trips over her own feet, knocks over anything in her path and only has to turn the handlebars on her bike to fall off it.

A little harsh maybe But once at the rink she did what we like to call an “Aunty Natty“.

(Sorry, Aunty Natty, but I promise you it is a compliment!)

She listened to the instructions, got up on those skates, and in 30 minutes was skating like a pro.

4. Fish and Chips

Yesterday we were at the supermarket and The Daddy left us by the donuts to go get some fish for dinner.

He returned brandishing cod wrapped up in white paper.

“Look!” he said, “Cod! And look at the price! We are going to eat fish and chips tonight!!”

Next, he put potatoes in the cart.

And then he tossed a deep fat fryer in there. Not kidding.

And before I knew it, we were at the checkout and he was trying to Google a recipe on his iphone, to be sure we had not missed any ingredients:

“BBC Recipe Fish and Chips“, he murmured urgently into the phone.

“Ah, not again! ” he sighed, as Google brought up “fishing trips”.

We never did get all the ingredients, and had to improvise. But the fish and chips were yummy. Yummy, if not good for the waistline.

Also,  I had to burn scented candles for hours afterwards.

He is talking about frying home made donuts next.

Many many bloggers are taking part in Project 365 right now, taking lovely daily photos of their surroundings to impress the world.

I love getting a viewpoint of their daily life, whether it be their walk to work, or their kids.

Unfortunately you won’t see any daily photos from me anytime soon, but last night, after a stressful day which began by spilling a whole packet of couscous grains onto the kitchen floor, I felt relaxed enough to document a typical evening.

After seeing the results,

I think you will agree,

that Project 365 is not for me.

So, here goes:

Dinner Prep. The Fates are trying to tell me something. Probably that I am not meant to have a clean floor.

Moving on. Pre-dinner drinks to take away the stress of the endless sweeping:

First thought? I wish the beer companies would stop trying to be witty. That is not the slightest bit funny.

Oh…

I don’t think it says “p*ss off”. They actually want me to pry off the top.

I may need glasses.

The Daddy idly browses a magazine. Wonders if this homely looking specimen would agree to be our "au pair".

If you don’t get this, check out the photos on Great Au Pair, and count the number of applicants you would trust with your husband.

I promise, you have that many fingers.

It would be lovely to have an au pair though, because of this:

In the meantime there has been a lot of noise going on. No panic, it was just the kids trashing the upstairs lounge. So that's OK then.

Next, I try to distract myself from the mess by focusing on the cat. Or mostly, not focusing on the cat. To be fair, he is not a willing participant.

Smile, Fiji! I said smile, not sniff...

OK. Keep still animal, we’ll try one more time, OK?

Gee, thanks. Very attractive.

Whew. Dinner’s over, the kids are in bed, time for some peace and quiet.

Except, there’s a strange noise coming from the lounge.

It looks like we have an escapee…

...and he found himself a new toy.

Perfect end to a perfect evening.

Don’t you think?

We forget almost every year, but this year we remembered.

We will be celebrating with a family trip to buy SEAFOOD.

Had to shout, because, you know, LARGE QUANTITIES OF SEAFOOD.

Washed down with pink bubbles.

Shut Up!

I happen to LIKE pink bubbles.

Any excuse for a party.

Especially on anniversaries which come but once every few years.

My new years resolution: I will no longer let the king size duvet cover beat me.

But if the king size duvet cover should win, I will not let it make me cry.

If by chance I do cry, I will not let my children see.

Because I know, that if they grow up believing that they can insert a king size duvet into a king size duvet cover then they will totally be able to do it.

And then I can get them onto bed changing duty.

******************************

And now for something completely different:

Here are a few of the things my children have made recently. The kind of triumphs which give me hope and confidence and prevent the whole duvet cover thing from keeping me awake at night:

A Pile of Leaves.

And then a Mess of Leaves.

Yet Another Gingerbread House.

(apologies for the poor quality photo. It was dark that day)

A Ugaglaon Wood (Congratulations Award) - try it with a Texan drawl and it starts to make a little more sense.

But only a little bit.

An Alphabet Crown. Yet another Very Useful Product from T-Bot Industries.

Inspired by Hero of the Rails, this is Niro of the Rails. Constructed of cardboard and what looks like a whole roll of clear parcel tape. Sigh. This is how my children keep me poor.

Oh, and here are some of the projects I didn’t show you. Be thankful. Be very thankful:

Happily, Baby Sister and The Wictor started back at school yesterday, so I will no longer have to virtually live at the office supply store. Although being at school does not prevent Baby Sister from using paper, and I still have to find places to proudly display all she brings home. I presume her liberal and enthusiastic use of A3 sized sheets is the reason behind the local elementary’s renewed fundraising efforts. So, indirectly - I am still paying.

The Wictor is also no longer tracking bucket loads of dead leaves into the house, but only because the trees are bare. Not that we would want to be out there anyhow, given that we have arctic winds and the promise of 4 consecutive nights of frosts. My team of furnaces is having trouble keeping up, although they make a valiant effort. And suck all the moisture out of the air in the process. I wonder if a cicada feels like this just before he sheds his hard dry shell. I am jealous. I want a new skin.

But otherwise fine. You may get more sense out of me when my friend the Sun makes his return.

Happy New Year!

Like many families, we are having a couple of weeks of “downtime” Inzaburbs. I know you are thinking vacation and family time and doing stuff! but actually this downtime really means the kids are off school, Mommy looks after them and tries to think up fun! activities! during the day, and then when the Daddy gets home in the evening both parents give themselves permission to drink the good wine and watch bad TV. Or movies. Or bad movies, if The Daddy has chosen them. Ah-em.

So, it’s been a long time since I watched Supernanny. I am not much of a fan. I mean, we all love Supernanny don’t we, with her suits and her cheeky english ways, but for me her tried and true formulas are getting a little…. Oops, sorry, I think I dozed off there.

Anyway, we sat down in front of “Naughty Kids” as my kids like to call it (we are very into Naughty and Nice right now and no I did not teach them this but a favorite game is playing Santa, making up a naughty list and a nice list, then giving somebody… coal. Which usually involves the Wictor coming downstairs wet with tears wailing “Baby Sisa say I nawy but I not nawy!”). And I don’t normally do this but I have to comment. I mean on this Supernanny episode not on the Santa game. I know I can be hard to follow.

It looked like it should have been a juicy episode. Four children under 5! Three of them are triplets! but, apart from feeling really really really bad for this woman - only three children under 5 had me crying in frustration at times and one of those was a baby, and honestly, nobody should be forced to look after more than one 2 year old at a time - the whole show left me puzzled. Why did they choose this family? Are there no real families in crisis left in America? My goodness, has Supernanny worked her way through them all?

As far as I could see the mother in this case was doing an amazing job. Especially when you consider she worked full time and came home to two year old triplets. I mean puh-lease. Even she said herself that what she needed really was a clone of her. Her kids didn’t seem to be running wild, they were just normal kids, multiplied by lots. Which kind of left the producers scrabbling for something else, I guess.

If I had been the producers I would have said “strap em in the stroller for outings and here’s Anymommy’s number for any other questions. Now go away. You are not worthy. Or rather, too worthy for our show.” But maybe they were committed by then. So they came up with:

1. Put more authority in your voice .

2. Use naptime to lie on the couch with your feet raised. The duplo blocks will clear themselves off the floor.

3. Make Daddy do more chores and plant flowers with the 4 year old.

4. Confront your father about why you feel you always need to clean up those duplo blocks.

5. Force your kids to eat their dinner.

That doesn’t sound really interesting does it? Really, it wasn’t. Not like that episode way back where the toddlers refused to sit at table so they were eating dinner squatting on the kitchen floor and counters… Now that was worth watching!

You know what was the most unintentionally hilarious part of the show? The advice snippet just before the commercial break. According to Supernanny not only must you make your kids stay at table until they have finished their meal, they also need to stay at table until they have finished their sippy cup. I agree hydration is important but honestly, Supernanny? Do you not know that is why the sippy cup was invented? SO YOU CAN CARRY IT AROUND.

Some good has come of this show. I have Supernanny to thank for introducing a new game to our house to supplant the awful Santa game. It’s called “Stay at Table Until you Finish Your Sippy Cup!”. And usually involves the Wictor coming downstairs wailing and wet with tears…

Thanks, Supernanny! For nothing.