Drawing the Line

We have a neighbor girl (about a year older than Lauren and two years younger than Sarah) who frequently comes over to play with Sarah. She only plays with Lauren because she "has" to. To give her credit, sometimes she is nice and encouraging to Lauren, and Lauren has more than her share of the whines. But she's frequently bratty & manipulative. She threatens to go home, or not be friends any more, and pouts when she doesn't get her way.

I'm torn between how much involvement I should have. I'm a firm believer in letting kids work stuff out themselves, without a lot of "fixing" from parents. In spite of that, I tend to remind her (and sometimes the other kids who come over to play) that they have to play nicely. Heh, Jeff is more likely to just kick her out. He has a lot less patience for her.

Once it warms up this summer, I anticipate more activity over here. I got this yesterday:
I'm picturing myself, sitting on the back porch (with a book, probably) every time we have kids over, insisting that they play decently. I'm torn between letting them deal with it themselves or saying "No Brattiness Allowed." Do I want to be the neighborhood hard ass, the Enforcer? Yeah, I'm already on my way to that--last week, I had to say, "No back flips from the top of the fence, guys."

Time to dig

It looks like it's almost time to start digging. Digging in the garden, and digging out the summer clothes.

It's only 71 right now, and supposed to go back to a more April-ish 50's & 60's for the rest of the week, but I'm thinking spring. I'm thinking about planting tomatoes and green beans. I'm thinking about those denim skirts for the girls. I'm thinking about garage sales and going to the zoo. I'm thinking about walks after dinner. And I think I see a lot of trees putting out green leaves!

My Downfall

I am going to waste sooooo much time at these places.

The Newspaper Clipping Generator

The Movie Clapper Board Generator

Wanted Poster Generator

Dollar Bill, Hollywood Sign, many others

I am already planning to use the first one to write a "review" of the dance recital in a couple months, to put in the annual album.

Guess the Show

You know the drill--which shows are these, based on their IMDB keywords?

1. Sexual Tension/FBI/Conspiracy
2. Mountain/Medical/Surreal
3. Cooking/Food History/Science
4. Comedy/Mystery/Best Friends
5. Japanese/Cheerleader/New York City
6. Detective/Strong Woman/Quirky (I had to make these up--IMDB lists no keywords for this show!)
7. White Trash/Flashback/Mustache
8. Model/Judge/Fashion
9. Father Son Relationship/Survival/Beach
10. Backstage/Sketch Comedy/Spoof

Don Imus

I don't listen to Don Imus. I don't listen to Howard Stern. I listen to locals Drew & Mike about once a year, but only if the kids aren't in the car, and even then I usually only make it about five minutes before I can't roll my eyes at their idiocy any more and look for something else.

I admit it. I'm not edgy. I thought that comment betrayed what an asshole he was, but I'm pretty sure he made that apparent long ago.

If Imus had called a bunch of California women's basketball players "bleached-blonde hos," would there have been any comment?

While listening to the radio last night, I heard a commenter call this a "cash veto," which I thought was very apt. If people don't like what they hear or see, they can choose to not support it. Money goes away, support goes away.

New Dinner

I try to find new meals (particularly new things to make with ground beef or boneless pork chops), on a fairly regular basis. Last night, I saw African Safari Pilaf and decided to give it a try. It came out ok. The kids said they liked it, but then didn't really eat that much of it. Jeff & I thought it was ok, but I have to admit, it didn't look all that appetizing. With the peanut butter & curry powder, it looked a little . . . "sludgy." Anyway, it was different, but I doubt it will make it into the standard rotation here.

Now, what to make tonight . . .

Quote of the Day

Actually from Monday morning . . .

"Mom, I don't like peace and quiet."
- Sarah, said on the way to pick Lauren up from her solo sleepover at Gran'mama & Gran'papa's house on Sunday night.

Current Thoughts

. . . about the pool vs. swings.
Jeff's mom made a couple good comments yesterday. She said that she thought the novelty of swings in our own back yard would wear off fairly quickly. I could see that. She also mentioned that when they had a pool when Jeff & his brother were kids, she made it a rule that if kids came over to swim, a parent had to be with them, and stay in the yard while the kid was in the pool. I think that is a great rule, although I bet it would deter a lot of kids from coming over (or parents from letting their kids come over). Part of me would really like to have the backyard that is always full of kids. Part of me realizes that wouldn't necessarily be so idyllic.

. . . about sewing.
I heard that Hancock Fabrics is closing all their MI stores.
This is bad, because I won't have a fabric store nearby anymore.
This is good, because they'll be having big sales.
This is bad, because I neither need nor can afford to buy more fabric right now.

I currently have three sewing projects in the works: Christmas pajamas (yes, from Christmas '06, shut up), napkins, and ruffly jeans skirts (have to go back to Katie's tutorial for a refresher).

The Easter dresses turned out cute. I love patterns that only use 4 pieces. Next year, I'd like to do something with a chiffon overlay. I think I finally "get" putting in zippers.

I really need to sign up for that Serger class this summer.

Swings vs. Pool

Jeff & I have been talking about putting up a swingset for a couple years, but (like so many things) never got to it. This year, I'm trying to kick us into gear.

My Dad keeps telling us that we should get a quickset pool instead. Our neighbor has one, and the girls went over frequently last summer, but the parents supervise them from inside the house, and that doesn't cut it for me, so every time they went over, I went over unless I knew they would be outside with the kids. I was more concerned for Lauren, because Sarah can swim reasonably well, and she's tall enough to have her head and shoulders above the water. Lauren was barely tall enough to touch the bottom comfortably.

Anyway, my Dad tells us that a swingset will only get about 4 more years of use before Sarah gets too old to play on it, and that it costs easily twice as much. Related to that, my stepsister said that her oldest son, who will be 10 in August, has already started to lose interest in their swingset, and that she wishes they'd gotten something bigger.

My counterpoint is that a pool can only be used three months of the year. Also, you have to mess with chemicals & such. True, it would be a great way to cool off in the summer, but I don't think it's as practical.

At this point, I'm not even sure we'll put anything in the backyard. Any money we spend would probably be better spent on landscaping the front or something.

The View in My Backyard

When we first looked at this house, I loved that the back yard was like a private meadow. On all three sides, there were so many plants that you couldn't see the neighbors at all. Since then, the people behind us cut down all the scrub trees that had grown up along their side of the fence. The neighbors on our right pulled out all the overgrowth from their back yard as well (their entire yard was jungle). So then we could see to the street on one side, and to the pool & house behind us.

This week, the neighbors on the right had their huge oak tree taken down, as well as a few other, smaller trees along the fence. We had the same guys take down our dead ash as well, at a reasonable price. Then the neighbor on the left decided he wanted his oak down, too. They also took out all the lilacs along the back of the fence.

My back yard is going to get a lot more sun this summer. Jeff keeps telling me it's going to be great for the garden, but I know he's happiest that there are going to be so many fewer leaves to rake now. I'm going to miss the lilacs, but they'd gotten badly overgrown, and didn't bloom much anyway.

We're trying to decide if we want to put some kind of kid-themed contraption in the back yard, but I'll write about that tomorrow.

Of course, the real reason the view in my backyard is different right now is because there is SNOW in it.

Library Time

Sadly, Story Time is done for right now, so although we still go to the library every week, Lauren spends most of her time looking at the movies. Then, right before we leave, she grabs one of the mini Beatrix Potter books, insists on checking it out herself. She looks at it in the car on the way home, then ignores it.

Since I've discovered the joys of managing my library account online, and can place holds on books from my computer, I usually have at least 15 books to pick up each time we go, from various local libraries. They're books for Sarah to quiz on, cookbooks, resources for school, and books for me to read. It's a gazillion times more efficient, and I don't have to limit myself to book in our local library. The main drawbacks are that I now spend less time browsing in the stacks (although if the kids are hungry, that isn't so much a drawback), and that sometimes we get books that I realize won't work for us after all.

Unfortunately, three of the books we turned in last week still show as being checked out to me. I know I returned them--Sarah & I went through them as we stuffed them in the bag before we left the house. They've done shelf searches, but no luck. I've renewed them (again, online), so I'll have more time to work out an option, but I'm worried that I'm on the hook for these books; if they don't find them, I have to pay for them.

The book I'm reading right now is Looking for God in Harry Potter. My mom said once that she wouldn't read the HP books and thought they were anti-Christian, because they showed witchcraft & the occult in a positive light. Well, yeah, some of the witches & wizards are good guys, so I can't much argue with her on that point. I don't know her views on Lewis & Tolkien, although I know a lot of fundamentalist Christians have fewer problems with them than with Rowling.

At any rate, I've just started this new book, and it's interesting, though so full of stuff that makes me think that I can't read it for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time. After that, I find myself putting it down and wandering around the house, letting it all ferment in my head for a little while.

Miss Emotional

Poor Lauren--she's been really emotional lately. At choir practice yesterday, she was practically in tears because she got the plain wooden sandpaper blocks (cool noise) instead of the blue ones. "But blue's my favorite color!" The choir director told me it was kind of funny/cute, because the song they were singing started with the words, "Why me?" She really looked the part (pathos), but by the time they sang during church, she was fine.

More interesting is that she's started crying at happy endings of movies. I got home from work one night about a week ago, and Jeff said that she'd cried at the end of 101 Dalmations (live action version). "What? Why? None of the dogs died, did they?" He told me that all she would say was that she was happy. Last night, we watched Spirited Away. Although Lauren left the room during one rather intense part (we read a book in my room for a few minutes), she came back for the end and again, cried, because it all turned out OK.

The interesting thing is that although I can certainly sympathize (I'm also a big sappy crybaby), I didn't expect this from her, at least not at this age. She's never seemed that invested in things like this before. I wonder if she saw either of those again, if she'd have the same reaction, or be more "prepared."

For the record, when she was younger, Sarah cried at Stuart Little when Stuart was being taken away from his human family, and at Lilo & Stitch when Lilo was being taken by the big bad alien guy. She seems to have matured past that, though.

There is no way we're going to watch Charlotte's Web for a long, long time.