I had no idea.

First week of kindergarten. SO LITTLE!

I realize now I was overly confident that being a teacher for 10 (!) years had prepared me for life as a parent of a school-aged child.

I had no idea.

I was SO excited for Ox to start kindergarten. I was thrilled at the start of school, started buying the kindergarten wardrobe the spring before, school supplies as soon as the list came out. . .

. . . and I'm pretty sure I suffered post-traumatic-stress-disorder for a month or two after kindergarten actually started. Seriously. I think it was WORSE because I was so used to knowing every detail about a school, from the routine of the woman who vacuumed the library to how the prep schedule was created, that NOT knowing all these details about Ox's day made me crazy.  Poor Mrs. T, she really had to train me in. I promised her I wasn't going to be "THAT parent" but I think I was. For a little bit anyway.



With only 8 days left of kindergarten, I think I'm settling in.

In April. . . King of the World!

I will say this, though, having a child in the schools really made Mastermind and I step up the community involvement. Mastermind just signed up to be Den Leader of Ox's Cub Scout troop (and talked me in to being the Troop 412 Webmaster), and I volunteered to be Secretary of the PTA for the next two years, pending official voting in at the first meeting in September. In my defense, it was out of need (as in, the just-voted-in secretary is moving to Switzerland), not any sort of desire to be in the limelight.

. . . can a PTA secretary be considered "In The Limelight?" I guess a star takes any role offered, especially if it is for the greater benefit of mankind, er, schoolkind.

Anyway.

8 days left of kindergarten. First grade is going to be a breeze.

Who am I kidding? Nothing about being a parent is a breeze. . . if it gets too easy, I'm sure I can ask to switch places with the Treasurer.

                                                                                                   *shudder*

What Do Librarians do on Spring Break. . .

I rarely ever, ever have a day off to myself. I felt a little guilty sending Little Frog off to preschool this morning, but I had a lot to do. Laundry, dishes, scrub the floor.

KIDDING!!

I went shopping instead. Easter stuff. Mastermind got a ton of Easter candy a couple of weeks ago, but we all knows what happens when Easter candy is bought too early. So I had to go shopping, and I bought NO candy.

Log pillow that we all need.

Mastermind and I decided to get each other Easter baskets this year, for the first time ever. I was all excited until I remembered how hard he is to shop for. He just buys everything he wants, and most of it is complex and specific.

So I went to Patina, which is always dangerous, but I have never failed to find something "important" and "necessary" there like the log-shaped floppy pillows that I nearly bought four of (hey, we would all NEED one, right?). I resisted, for now.

sigh.

Anyway, Easter basket stuff aside, I went to the library. While I was at the library I realized how funny it was that I, a librarian, was at the library on my day off. I found it so funny that I decided to go to another library.

Not only am I a librarian, I am also a dork, and not above laughing at my own jokes even if nobody else finds them funny. 

In my defense, I could NOT find a single David Bowie CD at Target, which Ox needs to have in his Easter Basket so I thought I'd run to my usual library to see if they had any. And then realized I had never been to the one that opened a half-mile away from my house and I probably should go there, too, just to visit.

and SCORE!! I actually got a MN Zoo museum pass!!!! I have never, ever, been lucky enough to get one, and that zoo is expensive!! We were going to go yesterday, but I just cannot spend $50 on a trip to the zoo.

It is okay, however, to spend $60 on four log pillows. . . right? Not that I bought them.

So I think I'll take the kids on Friday. To the Zoo. To see the baby animals and llamas and sloths.

Now I have an hour left of my all-by-myself day. Laundry. . . dishes. . . nah. I'll read me some Sookie Stackhouse in the sunshine. Which would be SO much more enjoyable if I had a log pillow on which to rest my head, but I'll cope.

I think a Cadbury Creme Egg would help.

SB d1

Nothing like the kids sleeping in to kick off Spring Break. If you have no idea how remarkable this is let me fill you in; Little Frog wakes up at 5:30 every. single. morning. Today she woke up at 7:08 - It was amazing.

Our Day in Pictures

First Up - Easter Package for the boy we sponsor
at Emmanuel Children's Home in Juarez. I think everyone
should sponsor a child - especially if you have children yourself.
Ox is especially excited because I found the first 4 books in 

The Magic Treehouse series in spanish. 

Second - my attempt to grate crayons was a failure.

So I used my food processor, ice chop feature.
I'm not sure it will ever be the same, but it was cool to watch.
We made sun-catcher eggs.

I found the BEST project (more crayons) on Pinterest - HERE
This turned out WAY cooler than I imagined. 

If only I could get a pose that truly
expressed my children. . .

We're going to take the cat to the vet now. She has to get fixed.

Again.

Spring Break has Sprung!

Okay I admit, I adore Spring Break. . . I hope schools never give it up. 

Ox and Grandpa P

I am terribly disappointed that Ox's Spring Break was two weeks ago, though. He had TONS of fun on his, but not with me, which hurts the MamaPride a little bit. I had to pass him off to every grandparent, and he got to spend the night at his cousins' house, too.

Little Frog not to be left-out

So I'm letting him stay home from school with me tomorrow (I had to get special permission from the principal, so that it was excused). I'm regretting it a bit, as it is the kick-off of Career Month in Kindergarten; they have a different parent coming the entire month to share their careers (I'm up on Thursday).

Mowing with Grandpa B

I am hoping to take the kids to the MN Zoo tomorrow. I'm not 100% sure I'm up for it, so I'll come up with a back-up plan. . . thanks to Pinterest it is much easier coming up with cool things to do.

Busy Weekend

Heron Egg Hunt + sneeze

Our weekend was SO busy I had very little time to take pictures. But I got a few. Yesterday we went on our first ever park-sponsored easter egg hunt, which we've always avoided like the plague (umm, crowds AND over-competitive parents? No thanks!!) but the one at North Mississippi Regional Park was unique; it was a Heron Egg Hunt. They used to host a heron rookery but it got damaged by last June's tornado. Luckily 4 baby herons were rescued and later released back in to the wild.

And lucky for us the park is still awesome, just minus a few trees.

Anyway.

Overly competitive parents aside (there were a few) the hunt was great. . . and I got to hold a baby chicken. I loved it and named it Otis and then had to give it back before it peed on my hand. I am still nursing a desire to get chickens but I'm going to wait until my sister-in-law gets them first and then learn all the chicken ins-and-outs from her.

Sunday Palm Day pose

Today was Palm Sunday. Or as the kids keep saying "Sunday Palm Day."

I adore Palm Sunday. I never gave it a thought until my kids were old enough to walk through the service holding palm branches and waving them. So I let them dress up today (okay. . . I confess, I got 3 different 'Easter' outfits for Little Frog, two for Ox, and just love a chance to let them dress up).

Little Frog refused to go to Sunday School (okay, until the last 5 minutes when she realized Big Church had no toys) but Ox and my nieces looked super-cute waving their palms.



We had our Palm Sunday BBQ after with my family. Which I got up at 3:30 for to put beans in the crock pot and never fell back asleep. I must be getting old.

At least the beans were good.

Hmm I swear it WAS a busy weekend. . . what did we do? Cooked and Cleaned, oh, right, also choir practice (anyone want to buy a raffle ticket?) and a Saturday afternoon benefit for Mastermind's brothers' niece who is going through treatment for leukemia. As horrific as it was having Little Frog in the NICU when she was born, I thank my lucky stars it was when she was too little to remember.

St. Patty's Day

The jury is still out on how much Irish we are - there is a smattering of ancestors from the Emerald Isle on all sides - but I'm all for playing up holidays; if only because it breaks up what can be a monotonous search for "what should we do today?" and "what should we eat today?"

We didn't actually do anything too terribly Irish, I would have loved to go to the parade, or maybe an Irish festival, but we weren't that organized. . . plus Ox had choir practice.

It was a gorgeous day. The kind of day that sets your green thumb to itching so we decided to take a trip to Linder's. I love Linder's, if only to browse and smell and soak in the colors.

We let each kid pick out a cactus. Ox named his David Bowie (he has been very impressed with the movie Labyrinth - both of them are, actually).

Little Frog named her succulent "Debbie."

Ox is so funny, he loves his cactus.

I'm just glad it's a cactus and requires very little attention.

What was especially cool about this trip to Linder's was their new line of Fairy Houses. My kids each have a fairy house that they decorate and redecorate every so often, so they were pretty impressed, too.

I would have bought a couple, but they were crazy expensive. I took pictures instead.

English Cottage

Seaside Cottage, maybe?

Do you see the elf?

My favorite - I love the giant plant!

I'm glad my imagination isn't dried up yet - I can picture myself living in every one of these little houses. I entertained a brief thought of buying them all and creating a fairy mecca in our back yard. But then I looked at the prices. 

I think we'll stick to wood chips and seashells for our fairy decorations. 

Sunday is for. . .

I don't know what it is, the upcoming work week maybe, that makes me want to cook on Sundays. Two Sundays ago I made 10 batches of White Chicken Chili for my meal club:

Step 1: onions, garlic, and cilantro

Little Frog was very entertained, she "helped" a lot:

Yes, she is "stirring" that burner. It's not on.

I cooked it in 5 double-batches, Little Frog tasted every batch:

And then I made 10 half-batches of cheesy potatoes (a few days later):

Frozen Cheesy Potatoes ready to go to Meal Club

Our downstairs freezer is now fully stocked. Not only is it fantastic to have a wealth of meals to pull out but it got me in a mood. To cook a lot on Sundays. 

Today I sauteed up a bunch of chicken with garlic and onions. Shredded it all and froze half. 

not my picture. stolen from website

I made a creamed avocado pasta salad recipe that I found on Pinterest for the kids' thermoses tomorrow. I used cheese tortellini and added some chicken. I am so thankful that my kids have more-than-pbj palates because it is so much more fun to make their lunches (even though I then burn out and "let" them get hot lunch. I can't do good lunches every day). 

The picture at the right is the one from the original recipe website. My picture turned out like (really tasty) green gloop, especially not pretty in a thermos. Luckily Ox's school served Green Eggs and Ham for lunch on Friday so he is still excited by green food. Yes, especially when he found out it was from avocado. 

The other half of the chicken went in to THIS recipe that I also found on Pinterest and was so fantastic. Especially when I used sour cream instead of yogurt and none of the low-fat crap it called for. Low-fat cheese? There is NO point. Gross. I froze half of that to wrap up in tortillas for burritos in the future. 

While I was cooking the kids played Sneaky Snacky Squirrel with Masermind. This is pretty much their most favorite game in the entire universe.

Then I got tired and we watched Labyrinth. Kinda scary but still PG, Ox was mostly concerned because David Bowie had bad teeth. 

This may be my last post in awhile because Game of Thrones comes out on DVD on Tuesday and I'm so excited I could cry. I do not know if I've ever, ever been this excited for anything to come out on DVD. Ever. As in I just googled for a Game of Thrones picture to add here and got too excited and had to close the tab. 

Anyway. 

.