Oct. 26: School photos, 2010-11

I finally got around to scanning these. Maybe some day I’ll even send them out.

 
Katie, 5th grade ~ Jack, 3rd grade (don’t worry; you’re not the only one questioning the pink background)

 

This is still my favorite picture of Jack, though:

Oct. 17: School portraits

The kids’ school pictures arrived yesterday.

Katie, 4th grade ~ Jack, 2nd grade

Time for comparisons for the past three years:

 

Yeah, I’m a little biased because I’m their mom, but I say they’re growing up just fine.

Sep. 24: Miscellanea

Quickly. I’ve got PTO stuff today.

• Yesterday I was in excruciating pain and thought I’d take a walk to see if it helped at all. I went up to the kids’ bus stop and back (approximately a half mile round trip), and it didn’t help at all. But it didn’t make me hurt worse! This is good. This is very good. I might just walk to my PTO activity later this morning. Maybe it’ll make up for the 7-layer bar I ate for breakfast.
• When we were at Safeco Field on Sunday we all got Garlic Fries. They were tasty and very, very garlicky. I think Victor’s order was from the bottom of the pot because you could barely see the fries through all the garlic. Monday night he said to me, “Everything that came out of me today smelled so bad!” Now, my husband’s an intelligent person, so why on EARTH would he say something like that to a person who has a blog? Especially when that person’s blog posts tend to contain a lot of here’s-what-a-dork-my-husband-is stories! And that person is me! (Boundaries? I know not what that word means.)
• Wanna know how lucky I am? I’ll tell ya. My mom is teaching a class on WWU’s Portland campus this quarter, so she’s flying up every other Monday and that means I HAVE A STANDING LUNCH DATE WITH MY MOMMA. Since the WWU Portland campus is adjacent to the hospital in which I often work on Mondays, it could not be more convenient. She said if Victor behaves that he could join us occasionally. We’ll see.
• Sherilee sent me a book for my birthday, and so far it is spectacular. I’ll dedicate an entire post to the book soon. It’s so nice to start reading something that I immediately know I’m going to love—I’ve run into some real chuckers lately.
• Last night I watched the season premiere of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and about halfway through I found myself getting angry because two major characters were making Benson and Stabler look like they sucked at their jobs. So I said to Vic that I didn’t like how those two characters were bothering “my peeps.” Then I hit my chest with the side of my fist twice, like the rappers do. And Vic said, “Don’t do that.” Like I can’t pull that off. Like it looks dumb. And ya know what? He’s totally right. I can’t pull that off. I knew this, of course, but I thought he was being kinda mean. So now I have to do it over and over, just to bug the hell out of him. Heh heh heh… that’ll show him to tell me when I look like an idiot even though he’s right and really only doing it for my own good.
• Tuesday was Picture Day at the school and I survived. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that on Picture Day, my anxiety level goes to 11. Last year was hellish. The year before I wrote about where most of my Picture Day anxiety comes from—third grade. Sunshine and I were sharing Picture Day horror stories Monday night and she had some real doozies—thank goodness she’s a blogger, because now you can read about them too!

I must go; the PTO calls. Lately the PTO calls a LOT.

Oct. 9: School photos

A few weeks ago I wrote about Picture Day at school. Today Katie and Jack brought home the fruits of my labor (or something like that...).


Look how innocent Jack was an hour before he broke his arm.

And here, a side-by-side comparison to last year’s school pictures to see how much they’ve changed and aged and matured and grown new teeth.

Sep. 16: A sucky day that sucked

Today has, for the most part, been a real farker of a day. A stick-a-fork-in-me-I’m-done kind of day.

First of all, it was picture day at the grade school. You know I don’t have the best experience with picture days past, and I probably stress over them way too much now. But that’s me. This morning I got the kids ready and although there wasn’t too much argument over what I picked out for them to wear, Katie drove me insane over her hair. Doesn’t she understand that I know what I’m doing? That no one—no one!—wields a better hot roller than I? Gah, I was so glad when I finally shoved her out of the car dropped her off at school.

Then I got involved in a project and suddenly realized three hours had passed and I wasn’t prepared for the meeting I had scheduled. I managed to move the meeting and got some other urgent tasks done before I started on my afternoon of errands. Among other things, today was our day to pick up the kitten from the pound. I called to let them know I was on my way and suddenly both of my phones were ringing. Yes, I am very popular. No, none of these calls had anything to do with my popularity.

In fact, the calls were from the school and Vic, both telling me Jack fell off the monkey bars and hurt his arm. Vic left work right away because they’d told him Jack’s arm might be broken. I left home immediately to get to the school before Vic and look like the more concerned parent. I win!

As soon as I saw my sweet boy’s arm, I knew it was broken. It was such a weird shape and it was all I could do to hold myself together. Jack was being brave so I figgered I had to be too. We sat in the sick room and waited for Vic. Katie came by and pretended to care but I’m pretty sure she just wanted to get out of school early.

Diagnosis: a Colles fracture. Hours later, Jack was home with a green cast and drugged up enough to think it was pretty cool, which is why he’s smiling in this photo and why, as I write this hours later and the drugs have worn off, he’s as grumpy and whiny as you would expect a kid who just fractured his arm to be.

Katie and I picked up the cat. We gave her about an hour to sniff around the house and get familiar with things before we introduced her to the dogs. She was instantly not impressed with them. Still, I tried to play peacemaker. Three very deep arm gashes later, I have decided maybe a cat does not belong in our house. I don’t know what our future holds, cat-wise.



By the way, we chose the name “Millicent” (Millie) for kitty. It supposedly means “industrious,” and we interpret that to mean “mouse-catcher extraordinaire.” At this rate, though, it’s more likely to mean “lived in our bookcase for two days and then the dogs ate her.”


The best news out of today is that school pictures were taken before anyone broke their arm or had their skin torn off by a frightened kitten. So, y’know, there’s that.

Sep. 21: Say “cheese,” Ouch-face

Today is picture day for the kids. I searched and searched for something Katie could wear with a somewhat decorative neckline that’s not too busy or trendy or blah. I finally decided on this red sailor dress, which I think is adorable. And this morning when I dropped her off and watched her walk into the school, I thought, “There goes my little 80s girl...” Just wait until she realizes it. It’ll be like the time I figured out my mom was putting me in a poodle skirt every day because she was so fond of the 50s style.

OK, truthfully I don’t think I’ve ever worn a poodle skirt in my life. But I bet my mom suggested it a few times. And if I could remember, I bet it bugged me.

A former classmate of mine is a high school teacher now, and told me the kids planned an 80s day for their Spirit Week one year. She was horrified to see what some of them wore and kept trying to deny we ever dressed that way before she sadly remembered that we did wear the Madonna leggings and lace, the Jelly shoes, the big hair, the geometric patterns, the bright colors, the layers and layers and layers. And she was surprised at how many kids ended up looking like Gilligan. Ah, what memories.

But I digest.

My second thought after dropping Katie off this morning was, “I wonder how much of a mess she’ll get into before she sits in front of the camera.” I think it doesn’t matter how much we get our kids looking picture-perfect, they always find a way to look like themselves again.

Sometimes someone else helps. While Kathy was in line for pictures her junior year, some jackass who probably had a crush on her came over and messed up her hair. The pictures turned out fine, but her hair does look a little fuller in some places.

But sometimes you’re just doing what you do best. On picture day in third grade we had recess just before our class went to the gym for portraits. I was running across the playground, slipped on someone’s coat on the ground (damn satin-y 70s outerwear!) and skidded across the asphalt on my face. Now, if you’ve spent any time around me at all, you know that I am not the most graceful of people. Apparently I never have been. On any other day an injury like that would’ve fallen in the “Not again!” category, but on picture day, well, I was in my usual fine form with incredibly unfortunate timing. Needless to say, I didn’t get my pictures done with the rest of my class. Re-takes were a week later and I got to wear MAKEUP (cool!) to cover the many scabs.

I never ran across the playground again, and when I see Katie running outside, I cringe with the memory of that sunny fall day more than 30 years ago. We discovered early on that Katie inherited my level of grace. Poor girl. I fear she has many broken feet in her future.

Let’s just hope she doesn’t have a major rearrangement of her facial features before 10:00 this morning.