Vacation Pics - Part 1 (day 1 - day 2)

In an attempt to curate the 2000 pictures we took, I'll give the highlights and overview:

Day 1 - arrival.  Schlep bags across Paris to the hotel / guest house.  Then go see the Eiffel Tower because... well.... you have to!

Day 2 - Get up (late) and go to the Museum of Industrial Design (ok - that's my translation).  But it was really cool.

 The Museum is perhaps most famous for housing the original Foucault's Pendulum.  However, that one fell and broke a few years ago and so I believe this was a replica.  Still cool.

Then we met up with our friends:

And all visited the Sacre Coeur:

Where we climbed over 300 stairs (mostly in a very tight spiral), but some straight to get to the top

 To have a nice (albeit slightly foggy) view of Paris:

The things they like

I started cleaning up the basement today.  Since the TV broke last year... I haven't been going down there much except to make a run to the beer shelves and to change the litter box.

But cleaning almost anywhere in the house puts my mind into "do I really need this s**t?" mode, and when dealing with the kids stuff it's way easier to say No than when I'm dealing with my own stuff.  I've had my stuff forever!  These kids... they've only had this toy for 5 years!

Not the point of my post, though... what really struck me today was sometimes how bad I was at meeting the kids where they are.  I have a basement full of reminders that my kids are the people they are and they like the things that they like.  They are not the mini-me's maybe sometimes I imagined they would be.  Perhaps this has taken me way too long to figure out.  OTOH, at least I'm coming to terms with it.

Example #1 - Jacob is not a big fan of Lego.  This is glaringly evident by the three unopened Lego kits sitting on the table in the basement.  I think this one is particularly painful because Brian and I both like Lego's and waited patiently until he was the "right" age to dive right into Lego-making.  And while Jacob does like a few elements of Lego (one - the architecture kits that he collects in his room; and two - playing with the Star Wars ships and Lego people once they have been dutifully built by his parents and friends), he doesn't like to sit and follow the directions to assemble them.  So, we've quit buying him new kits (except the buildings.... if anyone needs a Christmas gift idea for him, apparently there is now an Eiffel Tower) and I've let go of the mental image of us sitting around the dining room table together at night, assembling Lego kits as quality family time (which sounds a little corny except that this image really did begin to form during the countless mind-numbing hours spent pushing Thomas trains around in a circle and I would comfort myself knowing that someday we would progress to Lego.  Sigh).

Example #2 - Allison likes toys that are literally what they are supposed to be.  When Allison was younger we bought her a dollhouse.  This dollhouse is still in our basement.  We did a lot of dollhouse shopping and ended up with (what we thought was) a super-cool dollhouse made of wood with all kinds of sets that could fill the largely undecorated interior.  We were then stymied when she showed very little interest in playing with it... ever.  She liked dollhouses, she played with them elsewhere.  Why was she not playing with this one?  The answer has revealed itself over time, but boils down to the fact that she needs toys that are exactly that thing.  All the dollhouses she liked were the plastic ones with the stickers on the walls that looked like windows and the roof pre-molded to look like singles.  What we gave her had no walls and required a lot of mental imaging to play with... too much mental imaging it turns out.


I know we're not the only people who have kids with different interests than our own.  I also take comfort in knowing that this "hopeful shopping" is not limited to things that I buy the kids but also sometimes manifests itself in things we buy for ourselves (I'm looking at you - box of cross-stitch projects that looked so cool on the shelf).

So, it's not me sitting around and wanting the kids to be different people than they are.  It's me sitting around befuddled by the fact that they don't like the things I like.  And the net result is that the basement has come to house the toys that I'd thought the children would enjoy and the toys that I still hold onto with the (fading) hope that someday they will.

Back to School Shopping

Back from vacation and there are Things To Do to get ready for school.  Granted, we don't go back until September (what feels like the latest school start date EVER), but still the school supplies are starting to look picked over at Target. 

Plus, I actually need the kids to go with me to shop for clothing now because I can no longer guess their styles and/or sizes.  This is a little tricky with Allison because I don't want her ENTIRE closet to be filled with Monster High apparel (which is almost all she picks).  So, I've spent more than a little time browsing online for that ven-diagram intersection sweet spot of Knit Dresses : Size 8-10 : Style Appropriate for 6th Grade. 

Interestingly, some of the best finds are those stores that I've typically avoided because they sell clothes that make 7 year olds look like 14 year olds (why do we push them to grow up so fast??).... but when you have a 11 year old who is the SIZE of a 7 year old.... this suddenly becomes a viable shopping destination.  The other good finds are the "classic" stores - places like Gap and Lands End.

This is also about the time of year when I do the School Supply Rant.  This year's search involved an 8-pocket, polyvinyl organizer, non-accordian style.  WTH is that?  I had to google it, which led me to Office Max - incidentally NOT the cheapest place to buy school supplies.  So we're swimming in scissors, markers, colored pencils, glue sticks, and wide-ruled notebooks.  We've managed to get almost everything in just two trips... the few missing items occupying very specific requirements: "red, 3 subject, wide-ruled notebook."  Time to get on Amazon.

I also ended up in a conversation the other day with someone who had relatives buy school supplies for her children because the cost was so high, but they didn't qualify for any of the free backpack programs.  Which also led me to think about the free supplies and how does that program know that your kid needs an 8-pocket polyvinyl organizer?  Suddenly, I was grateful that my headaches of school supply shopping was limited to *finding* the items and not *affording* the items or sending my children to face the embarrassment of not having any school supplies or having the wrong school supplies.

The way we do school supplies is so wasteful.  Schools and teachers don't have supplies or money to buy supplies - so they create these long lists with everything your child might need for the year - plus a little more. (Ask a teacher how successful it is to request supplies in the MIDDLE of the year, it's better to be proactive at the beginning).  Many of the supplies return home at the end of the year - hardly used but enough lost pieces that it becomes difficult to recycle them into another school year.  (8 rainbow colored markers become 6 markers where three are blue - someone, somewhere has a wicked collection of black markers). And few things irritate me more than notebooks that come home at the end of year with 10 of 70 pages written on.  Either there was a more efficient and less wasteful way to do that work - or - my child was supposed to do something on the other 60 pages that he/she never did. 

Then we're also asked to supply the classroom with things like dry-erase markers.  I don't actually mind doing this, but I can't help thinking that the school could get them cheaper in bulk than parents can get them 3 at a time from CVS. 

Which leads me to the final point about school supply shopping - items are NEVER packaged in the quantity that you need.  3 packets of Post-its?  You can choose 1 or 4.  Incidentally, buying 4 is often the same price as buying the three individual packs you need. Then you debate "well, this is a better deal.... but then what do I do with the extra?"  Pre-sharpened pencils only come in packs of 18.  If you want the 24 pack - you'll sharpen your own. 

Tax Dodgers

I went to use some Kohl's "cash" yesterday (which is a huge scam, but that's another post for another day), but ended up with a $2 balance.  I decided I could pay the $2 with cash, rather than using the credit card.  We've had a pro-credit card philosophy for years which includes charging whenever possible; never carrying a balance; and reaping the benefits of whatever bonus plan our credit card uses.  This is why we own a lot of Sony products and I never know where the checkbook is.  Also, not carrying cash means I'm less tempted to buy things like.... say.... a mocha at Starbucks.

But increasingly, I'm visiting the ATM for cash.  Summer is farm market season; and many stalls don't take plastic.  So, that's a big money sink each week.  Then there are babysitters.  This weekend we had a sitter last night and another this afternoon.  It will probably total 12 hours of babysitting (which is a little unusual, but the kids can now stay home for short periods on their own - the only time we get sitters is when we'll be out late or gone long.... which equals more $$).

And finally, there are the tax dodgers.  Our cleaning lady prefers to be paid in cash because "if she deposits too many checks in one month, she has to pay a fee" which may in fact be true; but I don't think it's the primary reason she wants cash.  In September, Jacob will switch to another new piano teacher (current one opted not to renew lease on her studio) who prefers payment in cash as well.

If I had a better plan; I'd get all the necessary cash once a month and then divvy it up in envelopes so that it stayed out of my wallet and therefore out of Starbucks coffers.  But I don't have that much forethought, and so it's back to the ATM.

A follow up to Tuesday's post...

Jacob's team did win their game last night.  He had another good game; 4 for 4 (he says he hit the first pitch each time.... Brian and I don't recall but I think he's right), 3 singles and a triple.

So they got a spot in the tournament and next week they play until they lose, starting Monday.  So - good luck to them!

We did spend yesterday afternoon at the pool with a gaggle of children.  My friend was in charge of her children plus their cousins from Connecticut, Finland, and Italy.  It meant that there was always someone who wanted to share a tube on the waterslide. Plus, it was a little cooler, so the pool was not crowded at all.

Way to go Jacob!

I have pictures - but in this fading light it's best that I not try to transfer them to computer and end up with a camera memory card in the DVD slot..... again.

Jacob had a great baseball game tonight to start off the pool play week to make the city tournament.  He was 3 for 3 (all doubles) with a total of 4 RBI's.  He also made a double play to end the game by catching a pop fly then tagging 2nd base (the runner had taken off).

Tomorrow they play a much tougher opponent.  That team won their first pool play game 20-1.  Jacob's team did beat the team they play tomorrow in the regular season, but only by 1 run, and there were more than enough close calls / missed calls / narrow escapes that the game could have gone either way.  So.... let's hope Jacob has as good a game tomorrow as he had tonight. 

Of course, we're spending the afternoon at the swimming pool with friends so..... probably not.  lol.

I will say (again) that I'm very happy that we played Jacob in the machine pitch league again this year.  What's kindof cool is that there is nothing particularly remarkable about their team.  They have one "really good" all-around player.  But most of the kids are just.... pretty good.  They've learned to play together as a team.  They've learned how to back up plays and who to throw to.  They've learned how to hit the ball relatively consistently.  They've been coached well by coaches who are also very good but also not outstanding. 

Last year's team was filled with "superstars" who thought they were better than everyone else out there.  Superstars who never got better because they never learned to play together.  Well, they had no practices once the season started in May - so most of them didn't learn anything.  The grapevine (facebook) indicates that more than one of those kids is now ready to quit baseball because they weren't "good" this year.

Jacob's team this year is definitely better than the sum of its parts.  I hope they make it into the tournament, even if their chances of 'winning it all' might be slim.  But even if tomorrow is the end of the road; I'm still really glad this was the season he had. 

Idyllic Summer

So.  I clearly haven't posted in a month because I don't want to make you all jealous at how idyllic our summer is - just like everyone else's.

There's been fruit picking, swimming pools, sprinklers in the yard, and ice cream.  The children have been playing non-stop outside in the sun.... so tired from their 1970's-style fun that they go right to bed at the late hour of 8:30pm.  There have been crafts (Pinterest!), homemade baked goods, and I cannot believe that the children are getting along so well!

There have in no way been tears over mom's strict electonics policy. 

There has certainly not been a girl up at all hours of the night because she's tired of taking melatonin at bedtime.

The cat certainly doesn't smell like Hades due to the sulfur baths.

And if you happen to hear yelling outside the windows - trust me - it's not the kids yelling at each other or me yelling at them - it's this awesome new game we invented to make fun of all the "less idyllic" families out there.

And the USDA recently rewrote the food pyramid to make potato chips a food group, right?

Finally, thank goodness I have the summer "off."  Because there is absolutely no way I'm sitting in front of the computer for hours trying to meet totally arbitrary deadlines for course developments and papers required for tenure.

So there!  This summer rocks!  I knew you'd be jealous!