Zoo Party!!!

The Moo had her 5th birthday party today at the National Zoo in downtown DC. The party was held in the Rainforest Room at the Amazonia exhibit, and the children were taken on a tour of the rainforest exhibit as part of the festivities. A good time was had by all, especially the Moo who loved having all of her friends there (particularly her fiancee) and was thrilled to find out in a special presentation at the end that the Zoo was letting her adopt an animal for her birthday. The Moo's animal is Sookie the Grey Seal, and she received a picture and stuffed version of her new "pet" from the Zoo staff -- she stared at the picture and snuggled the stuffed animal the entire drive home! Thanks to all who turned out and made her party so great!! I will spam you with the million pics that dad took later, but wanted to get a few on the girls' blog as well. The Bean did a great job letting her sister have the limelight, although the Moo did get a little more help than she really wanted opening presents when we got home.

Mediocre Retirement

The Moo has heard a lot of talk about retiring lately, what with Grandpa D's retirement party. She told me the other day that she had "retired" from Beantree when she started to go to Loudoun Country Day. And yesterday she came down the stairs with her sleeping bag in tow. When I asked her with her sleeping bag and pillow in tow. When I asked her what she was up to, she said "I'm retiring from sleeping upstairs. I'm sleeping down here now."
In the meantime, the Bean has learned a new word from the source of all wisdom, Spongebob. A few days ago in the morning, she asked me what "mediocre" meant, and it came out that Spongebob called Squidward a mediocre clarinet player. I explained to her that "mediocre" means "not very good." Then I asked her to use the word in the sentence to show me she understood what it meant. She thought a little bit, looked at me, and said, "These eggs are mediocre."

Horsing Around

Ok, tacky entry title, but you trying being both witty and pithy when you are living in a house of seemingly neverending sickness. Here are some pics of the Moo's new stable that Dad put together with much love, effort, and profanity.

Update on not so perfect day

The Moo now has a fever of 103. Sigh -- spring break 2008 has not turned out the way Mom had hoped. And the nice weather is quite frankly just mocking me now.

Recent Citings!

Just FYI -- Cafe Brauer, where Aunt B and Uncle J were married--was featured on Top Chef Chicago this week (you can still catch it in the ubiquitous reruns on Bravo if you missed it, Grandma L)! Also, for all of those with younger children in the DC area, there is a play at the Kennedy Center on the Family Theater stage called Kite on the Wind, A Tale of Pakistan, where "young Shahab . . . meets some friendly characters from Pakistani folklore in his daydreams [that] help him connect with his heritage." It runs from 4-12 April. Finally, thanks to Little Chicken's mom for posting a link to her macaroni and cheese recipe -- we remember it from Aunt Lolo's house during our trip to CA last summer and can't wait to make it at home!! (Delilah's 7 Cheese Mac and Cheese, found at www.foodnetwork.com). YUM!

The Downside to Turning Five

The downside to turning five is that your mom takes you in for a physical and you have to get shots. Four of them. And because your mom tells you about the shots the day before, you spend the whole day working yourself up about them, to the point where when you are in the doctor's office getting them it takes three nurses to hold you down. Literally, three nurses to just get you to the point where they can actually get the shots anywhere near you. And because you are so tense the nurses end up having to literally poke the shots into you, so you end up having sore legs for the rest of the day.
And then, on the way out, your little sister who was so good in the doctor's office and tried hard to ease your anxiety by putting on the "Doctor Monkey Show" while you were waiting for the shots to arrive has a HUGE meltdown in the middle of the parking lot on the way to the car. And your mom has to carry her kicking and screaming to her car seat, and she screams at your mom "Mommy, look what you did. I'm sending you to jail, Mommy."
And then, after you get home, you dad calls and says "How did it go honey?" and your mom says she quits.

Sick Bean

She is feeling poorly. She says to me "Mommy, say poor baby Bean. She is so sick." And then she wants a hug and a snuggle . . .and for some inexplicable reason cottage cheese.

Happy Birthday Moo!!

The Moo is five years old! She woke up this morning much like she came into the world: EARLY (timewise, not due-date wise). Or maybe it just seemed like early to Mom, who had been up all night with a vomiting Bean, and to Dad, who has also been sick and has not slept much for the past three days. We decided to open gifts in the morning as the Bean's illness is probably going to keep us housebound for most of the day, so at least the Moo has some new things to entertain her while we are stuck in the house for the third straight day. We may venture out later so she can go to her riding lessons and I need to get to the store to get something for dinner. I had asked her previously what she wanted me to make, and she said she wanted to go to a restaurant. So, I asked her which one and she said "RED ROBIN!!!" Unfortunately I'm not sure the Bean is up for it, and frankly I can make mac-n-cheese at home (which is what she would have ordered anyway)!

The Moo on being five: "Well, what's different about being five years old is that I can play with my friends with more tough games because they are already five. I can probably play with anyone else who is five also. When you are five you can do a pretty good job with your allowance. When I am five I can put stuff together goodly. What I want to do right now is I want my friends to be happy that I am five, too."

Tack shop from the Mayers above and some more horse related items from mom and dad and Grandma L and Grandpa D--the Moo LOVED her horse music box, Grandpa and Grandma, as well as the additional riding lessons. The Bean loves it too -- she spent the morning looking and looking at it, and when I asked her if she liked it she said "It's so beautiful."

Molly opening her Blockus game from Uncle Mike, Joe, and Beth. And finally, our smiling five year old! Thanks so much to everyone who sent cards and well wishes -- the Moo was thrilled with the one dollar for each year of life from Kenny the Shark and Mrs. the Shark, and her cards from Little Chicken and Uncle&Aunt Little Chicken. She also has a generous gift card from Grandma D, and I can see the wheels churning in her little mind about how to spend it (she mentioned an "alien maker" -- maybe aliens will be taking over the horse farm in the new future).

The Bean on how the Moo is different now that she is five: "A five year old sister is called Mooster. What's different about her is that she will have a party. And she stealed my paper." (They are watercoloring right now, and I guess Molly is hogging the watercolor paper -- time to stop blogging and start "mom"ing!!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOO!! Mom and Dad love you and are so proud of you.

Outdoor Fun

Yesterday it was 65 degrees out and we met some friends at Clemyjontri park, a HUGE complex in McLean. The land was donated by a local family (the name is a combination of all the names of the children in the family: Carolyn, Emily, etc) and the park was designed to accommodate children of all levels of ability, including the physically disabled. The girls had a great time, although like always I forgot to bring the camera. It's kind of a stressful place for parents though, as it is teeming with children running every which way and it is so big that it is easy to lose track of your kids as they go running off in different directions. I lost track of the Bean for less than a minute and I was almost reduced to tears (granted, I am a bit more histrionic than your more well-adjusted mom; our friend lost track of her daughter within the first five minutes and very calmly went to find her). The girls loved finally being able to get outside and play!

After that we went to a local eatery, the McLean Family Restaurant, and I thought I noticed a slight look of fear in the eyes as we entered with four children ranging in age from almost five years old to just over six months. The girls did great, however, although it was very close to the Moo and the Bean's bedtime and it showed. We had one brief Bean meltdown before we got there, and she had to admonish the Moo several times to "stop tangonizing me!" (that's Bean for "stop antagonizing me!"). Dad was also mortified as the Bean decided this would be a great time to imitate a character from Spongebob and yell out "Hey, you old coot!" over and over. McLean has an aging population, and several people might have taken grave offense at the Bean's catch phrase had she been a bit more intelligible. Just to be on the safe side, Mom encouraged her to switch to her second favorite Spongebob quote "Help! Help! Fire on the poop deck!" (scatological humor continues to reign supreme in our house). Not much better, but less likely to personally offend the clientele.

The kids were out like lights by the time we got home, so we are now on day number two with no bath. Practically unheard of in our house, and I am sure there will be repercussions health wise, but the girls are definitely enjoying the extended bath reprieve!

Misc

Yesterday was "green is keen" day at the Moo's school, and the letter 'G' was the theme for show and tell. When I asked the Moo to think of something that started with the letter G to take in, she got a big smile on her face and said "G is for Gecko!!" So, after some negotiation with her teacher, Ruby (our crested gecko) made a visit to the Moo's classroom yesterday. We dropped her off in the morning and the Moo spent the day educating her friends on the care and feeding of crested geckos -- amazing enough it all went went and Ruby survived, a bit stressed but apparently none the worse for wear.

Dad and I had a meeting with the school's fundraiser and headmaster after dropping Ruby off to discuss remaining fundraising for the new campus. The meeting was an hour long, and unbelievably the Bean entertained herself the entire time and let the grown ups talk without interrupting! She was GREAT! I'm not so sure that the school if going to think Dad and Mom are great though: in between paying tuition for two children (and right now the Bean's at Beantree is even more than the Moo's), the regular annual fund donations that are solicited, and what the headmaster says will be at least a 10 percent in tuition next year, there is not a whole lot that we have left to give. At least now we now what to expect when the new tuition bill comes in next year.

After all of that, Mom took the girls and come friends to see Horton Hears a Who. I highly recommend it -- it was very well done, entertaining, and even the Bean stayed in her seat and was glued to the movie the whole time. The Moo declared it the "best movie I have ever seen" but that should be taken with a grain of salt as she says that after every movie. A note of caution: there are some scary scenes with Vlad the vulture, but they are short and more "make you jump" scary than "freak you out and give you nightmares" scary. All in all, two thumbs up from the pre-K contingent!

Terms of Endearment

We get a lot of email from LCDS, the Moo's small school which is home to about 200 children, so about 150-175 families, more or less. Their main form of communicating with the parents is via mass parental distribution lists, to reach the widest possible audience. We get about three or four emails from them everyday, and today was no exception. I generally don't check my email that much on days that I work, but Dad gets his LCDS emails sent to his work account, so he sees them as they come in. Once came in today about the summer school being extended for a week, and since planning child care for the summer had been largely my domain, he forwarded it to me. He wrote the following on the forwarded email "Hi Sweet 'Ems! Does this affect us? I hope you are having a good day. I love you! Hubby."

I should rather say that he wrote that on what he thought was a forwarded email but was rather a reply to all on an email that had been sent to the entire school population, staff and parents all included (not student, thank goodness). At last count, he had literally received about 50 emails back, mostly from other dads, mostly saying things like "Thanks Snuggle Bunny! I love you too!" We are hoping if we keep our heads down and don't make eye contact with anybody for the next week, it will all blow over . . .

Duuuuuude . . .

This morning, much like many other families across America, we struggled to get out of bed due to the effects of "springing forward." I was rushing the poor barely-roused children through teeth brushing as I wanted to get them downstairs in time to have some breakfast with Dad, who was also rushing to get out the door. I got them down and continued running around trying to get breakfast thrown together, when the Bean comes up to me, taps me on the leg, and says: "Can you turn on the TV, dude?"

Two great books that we bought today that I highly recommend: for the three and under set The Bunnies Are Not in Bed, by Marisabinna Russo. For the four and over set, You Can't See Your Bones with Binoculars the author's name escapes me right now but it should be fairly easy to find in an Amazon search. It's an excellent introduction to human "interior" anatomy; the Moo really enjoyed it!

Sunday Morning Cooking and Craziness

As I may have mentioned in the past, Sunday's are my morning to get up with the girls. We came down this morning and the Moo said she wanted to make an egg casserole for breakfast, meaning the chile relleno casserole that is a staple of brunches in Grandma L's family and which is universally enjoyed by everyone who has tried it. Unfortunately the recipe requires sour cream and when I looked, the only tub of sour cream in our fridge had expired a month ago. Not to be deterred, we scrambled for another egg casserole recipe, improvised a little, and came up with Sausage and Egg casserole a la Moo and Bean. Yum!:

6 eggs

6 slices of bread, cubed

1 and a quarter cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

1 tsp salt

1 tsp dry mustard

1 lb. sausage, crumbled and cooked

1 and a half cup milk

preheat oven to 350, mix all ingredients together (if cooking with Moo and Bean grate extra cheese and fry up extra sausage to mitigate loss of ingredients during "quality control" inspections, as the Moo calls them!). Pour into small baking dish and bake for 45 minutes.

After breakfast the craft foam came out, and the girls made aliens, mustaches, and finally "hair for daddy." (Daddy would not let us take his picture in his new wig but the Moo was happy to model it). The Bean grabbed the girls stegosaurus puppet and had been running around "eating" various smaller stuffed animals, although we keep telling her that Steggie is an herbivore -- apparently she has a high tolerance for scientific inaccuracy.

Playdates Gone Awry

So, yesterday was a teacher workday at the Moo's school. One of the other mom's had approached me about watching her daughter while she had a doctor's appointment, and that ended up turning into plans for a mega-playdate between the Moo and Bean, the Moo's fiancee C, and her friend G (whose mom had the appointment). We were going to all meet at the Go Bananas toy store, G's mom would take off, C's mom and I would take the children for a pizza lunch, ice cream, and then off to the new movie theater to see Veggie Tales! Quite possibly the BEST PLAYDATE EVER, right?
The first indication that all would not go as planned happened when the rain started to pour down the minute we got to the shopping complex, which is an outdoor mall. Of course, the Moo was wearing her clogs which she can barely walk in (these are a recent obsession that got us a talking to from her school; apparently clogs are unacceptable footwear for PE :) New rule: no clogs at school!). At any rate, the handoff from G's mom went smoothly, lunch went great, and the ice cream was enjoyed by all. Once we got to the movie theater, however, we found out that the lineup rotates on Friday and Veggie Tales was no longer playing. Panic among mom's ensued while hopped-up-on-ice-cream children ran around the movie theater lobby like crazy things while we tried to figure out what to do now and see if the movie was playing elsewhere.
G's mom showed up about this time and suggested we head over to Loudoun Sport Bounce, one of those places filled with all things inflatable and bouncy, so I got the girls in the car and talked up how much fun it was going to be even if no popcorn was involved. Of course, once we got there we found out they were closing in 10 minutes. Since it was raining outside still the only place to discuss next moves was inside Sport Bounce, so the now twice disappointed kids were forced to sit there and look at all the cool things they were not able to play with.
This was too much for the Bean, who at this point was way overdue for a nap, so we begged out of any additional activities and headed home. As a compromise we stopped at the store on the way home and bought a new movie (101 Dalmations) and popcorn, and had our own movie date at home which ended up being a lot of fun, although the Bean ended up crashing out, waking up for dinner, and then not falling asleep until 11 pm last night. It also provided a valuable lesson to the girls about the best laid plans . . . and how sometimes if you roll with it and adjust, things can end up working out OK in the end.
The Moo and I also had a nice heart-to-heart about how even though it's hard sometimes, she needs to try a little bit more to make sure the Bean doesn't get left out when we are doing things with the Moo's friends. The Moo and her friends are actually pretty good at including the Bean, but as a mom it is kind of hard to watch her trailing behind while the other three are off and running. Next time I will try and include a Bean friend in the mix: maybe we can get C and Evan to come and the girls can go on their first double date. :)
Today the Moo and I are off to a birthday party at Pump It Up (yet another inflatable bouncy place) which means the Bean gets a playdate with daddy! Right now, she is busy playing music with her castanets or as she calls them her 'clackanets,' because "they go clack."

Wacky Wednesday

This Wednesday was "wacky Wednesday" at Beantree Learning (www.beantreelearning.com) where the Bean goes to school, and all of the kids were encouraged to dress crazy. The pictures show what the Bean and her Dad came up with; the tights on the head were the Bean's idea and apparently (from what her teacher tells me) they were the hit of the school. Frankly, I'm just amazed she kept them on! Her Dad left me a message that I could barely understand this morning on my voicemail at work, because he was laughing so hard when he said it. Apparently they were listening to some SIRIUS music channel and something done by Engelbert Humbertdink (sp??) came on. Given that Engelbert Humberdink is a fun name to say, Dad thought he would teach it to the girls. He repeated it to the girls several times, and then asked the Bean "OK, what is the man's name?" to which the Bean very proudly replied "Doggybutt Humperdink!!"

That's about the mosy exciting think to happen this week! Oh, I got an award for mentoring at work, which was very nice as this is the part of the job that I enjoy the most. And poor Dad has been working so hard and helping to take care of the kids as I have been a bit under the weather. The Moo was amazing at her riding lesson today and we have bought her a ton of Breyer horse toys for her upcoming birthday. Her invitations to her Zoo party went out this week, and we have heard for sure that C (her fiancee) will be attending, so at this point I don't think it much matters to her if anyone else turns up! :)

The Moo on taxes

I am inspired by the looming filing deadline to relate this anecdote: Last month the Moo's Pre-K class was visited by the mayor of Leesburg, and in preparation for the visit they put together a book: "If I Were The Mayor." Mayor Umstaad read the book at the next city council meeting which was telecast on the local cable access channel -- unfortunately we don't have cable so we missed it. Luckily, however, the Moo's teacher burned a DVD of the meeting and sent it home for us. They chose to make the Moo's entry the last one, so we waited through some very creative suggestions (ranging from adding 100 more police officers to opening more bunny shops) to get to "Mayor Moo's" page:
If I were the mayor I would tell people "No throwing glass out of your window or your car because you might hurt someone!" Also, I would talk to people about taxes. Taxes are very good. Taxes take you were you need to go.

In praise of blogs . . .

Now that we have been at this blogging thing for a few months more or less, I have to say that I am so glad that we decided to do it. We have gotten feedback from some family members that they are very much enjoying keeping tabs on us and the girls through the posts, as mundane as they are, which makes it all worthwhile. We had toyed with the idea of blogging in the past but had always shied away due to security concerns -- hence the very clunky use of nicknames and initials on this blog, which I know is cumbersome and not conducive to narrative flow, but it was the bargain I struck with Dad to get his by-in on the blogging. He is now a convert and is very supportive of the blog, in part because he likes the idea of having an historical record to show the girls when they are older!
We also have some family members who are on the opposite coast who blog (in fact, they are the ones who inspired us to start) and its hard to quantify how much we are enjoying reading about their daily lives. And yes, there is a point to this posting: to all of you whom I have been hectoring to PLEASE start blogs of your own, and you know who you are, I say: Please start blogs of your own! We miss you and would love reading about you and what you are up to, regardless of how prosaic it might seem.
OK I am done preaching! We have had an active morning making papier mache easter eggs (and adding lovely spots of glue to our carpet) and homemade bean bags. The Moo made a magic wand bean bag that tested the limits of Mom's artistic abilities and the Bean made a "blankie" bean bag. For those who don't know, the Bean is a blanket child -- a friend of mine gave her a pink and white blanket from Pottery Barn when she was born and the two have never been parted for long since then. If we let her, the Bean would take "softie blank-wank" everywhere (she is also very into rhyming right now, hence the "blank-wank." The Moo is very excited about the fact that is now March and that means her 5th birthday is fast approaching. We are having her party at the National Zoo this year; wish us luck!! I have to get moving and come up with party favors that do not involve candy and play off the zoo theme -- ALL SUGGESTIONS ARE MORE THAN WELCOME!!
Now I am off to get cleaned up, as I am still sitting here in robe and pajamas -- it seemed appropriate while we were doing our crafts and as I was purging their book shelves (I finally tackled the task of culling the older books although it was hard to get rid of the ones that they have loved since infancy! I put some of the real favorites aside to give to them when they get older) but less so now that it is past noon!! Guess we will not be making it to Mass today :( sorry dad!

LCDS E-A-G-L-E-S

The Moo has been very excited this week about the Talon Tournament, to the extent that the only song we have heard is the "I am an Eagle" chant all week. The tournament is a basketball round robin between LCDS and three other private schools in the area. We were unable to attend the opening yesterday as the Moo and the Bean declined to meet the requirements set down for going (taking a nap) and since Dad was with Grandpa S, Mom said "no way" to taking them herself.
We did, however, opt to attend the second day of the tournament today, and got there just before the girls championship game, which was a very exciting contest that was very nearly won by the LCDS Eagles!! It was so fun to take the girls to their very first school related athletic event; they both insisted on getting LCDS pom-poms and then spent the whole first half shaking them on the sidelines screaming "Go, Eagles, Go Eagles, GO GO GO!!!" (the Moo was very proud of authoring that particular cheer). I wish we had brought the camera to take the pictures. The boys team was also in the championship but we were only really interested in the girls game and Dad and Mom were laboring under the delusion the naps could still be taken. Two hours later, the girls have disabused us of this notion, and we are off to buy crickets for poor Ruby, our crested gecko who did not eat last night, because Mom refuses to add "cricket wrangler" to her list of job responsibilities. Will find out tomorrow if the boys won, as it is not on their website yet. GO EAGLES!!!!