Riley and Avery

Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up that I will likely be making this blog private very soon.  I never really thought that anyone but family would have any interest in my boring stupid day-to-day existence, but well, time are a-changing.  I have been putting my blog in my signature line in outgoing emails for a while now, not really thinking about it.  But now I kind of feel funny about it.  I mean, I use email for the lion-share of my communication these days, and not usually with people I even know.  It kind of weirds me out that people I don't even know, or people who are not known by anyone that I know, are looking at my blog.  Obviously, friends and family will be given permission to view the blog.  In the off chance that there is anyone else out there who has made a habit of reading my blog (seriously, I regularly read the blogs of people I find linked on other blogs.  They don't know me and I don't "know" them, but I'm not creepier than your average person, so if anyone does that with my blog it's cool by me, but I can't be held responsible for any side-effects of reading about my boring life), don't hesitate to ask for permission.  It's just that when I email a person selling a bookshelf off of craigslist and it turns out that he is a real weirdo, I'd rather he not have access to my blog.  Ya know?

And no, nothing traumatic or weird has occurred to spark this change, I just realize that times have changed and I want to limit the access that others have to my family.

Riley had her speech evaluation last week.  The principal told me that an IEP meeting has been set and I should be getting a notification soon.  I don't really know what to expect, and I hate surprises.  I basically am apprehensive about all the people that have to be there.  It feels like it's the whole world vs. me.  I hope it's good news, but really, I'm not sure it's gonna be.  I mean, I want to be optimistic, but I just think that will set me up for disappointment.  Of course I'm a little sensitive about it right now since Riley has a spring musical coming up that the first graders put on every year and she was hoping not to have a speaking role because she can't say her r's.  Insert sound of heart breaking here.

...at Old Orchard Beach, in pictures.

Trying to catch up on blogging here!  Boy, I'm behind!

We had a wonderful Easter.  Nothing too big.  Just a regular dinner.  Ham, of course, since I never pass up an opportunity to eat my favorite meat :)  Plus, it's cheap and can be eaten forEVER in all sorts of recipes.

We had nice weather on Earth Day, so we headed downtown for the Urban Earth Day.  I thought the use of the work "urban" to refer to Portland was funny :)  We ate cheap hotdogs and enjoyed the people.  All of them friendly, some of them very strange.  One woman had her pants hanging below her butt, with a short jacket on, and what turned out to be a gold swimsuit hanging out.  The worst part was that the seat of the suit was so worn thin it was quite transparent.  Later, she took her shirt off to dance and she had a black bra on under the one-piece swimsuit.  Odd.  Oh, and she had a fierce mullet.

...died last night.  Riley was absolutely heartbroken, thinking it was her fault.  She's been so patient with those birds, talking to them and starting hand-taming.  She cried and cried...and cried.  She cried herself to sleep.  There was a 15-day guarantee, but it had been 17 days.  I called up Petco and asked them if the 15-day guarantee was firm, as it had been 17 days and Riley was heartbroken and we didn't have money in our budget to pay for another bird.  They let us have a replacement for free!  But really, this is what I freakin' hate about birds.  One day they appear to be fine and the next day they are stone cold dead.  We buried him today.  Riley decided to not bury him in a box because it's better for the environment :)

So, like I already blogged, we planted the tulip bulbs yesterday.  I forgot that I snapped a few pictures, and I feel like I haven't posted pics in a while.  We bought these bulbs last fall, and I never got around to planting them then.  I mean, who wants to do garden work in the fall?  Plus, I started clearing a spot for a garden bed in the fall and almost immediately squished a white grub with my hand and that made me totally squick out, so I stopped.  I can totally admit my squeamishness.  Anyway, I asked around and it turns out that you can plant fall bulbs in the spring, they just need to have a period of cold (achieved by leaving them in the mud room all fall/winter) and generally take a little longer to bloom.  The downside is that I had them in plastic bags, so they got moist and a few of them were moldy.  Quite a few had already sprouted in the bag, so I guess that's a good sign?  Right?  Hopefully at least a few come up so the girls will be happy.  I've also heard that in order to have tulips come back year after year, you need to cut off the blooms so that the plants conserve energy by not producing seeds.  Win-win: the girls get to cut flowers and I don't have to re-plant bulbs.  Sweet.

I really have nothing to blog about.  The weather has been cool and we really haven't gone anywhere interesting lately.  Today it is supposed to be warm, but rainy (of course).  Riley is on spring break, and it looks like the weather won't break the 60s the entire week.  We'll find something to do, I hope.  Or all go crazy.  April showers bring May flowers.  Repeat until I believe it...

So, everyone already knows the drama (and expense) Ginger has caused us these past couple of days, but I record here because that's what blogs are for!

So, Rudi bought puffer fish about a week ago.  We've had puffers before.  They are adorable little fish, with their plump bodies, forward-facing eyes, smiley face mouths, and tiny little side fins.  They are attentive when you walk into the room and watch your every move.  These were the biggest puffers we've had before, though.  The others were less than 1/2 inch long, about, and these were a good 2 inches long.

We went to Two Lights last weekend, and Crescent Beach today.  It's nice going to them in the off-season, because we don't have to pay :)  I think come warmer weather we will buy the annual state park pass since we will be spending a good amount of time at these beaches!  I wonder what Crescent Beach will be like in the winter, since they're parking lot is insanely huge.  I think they have a vendor there too during the peak season.  We'll see.  Right now, we enjoy having the shore nearly all to ourselves.  Just a few joggers and dog-walkers there right now.  And us.

Yeah, I make my own.  I was sick of Riley having a reaction to every single detergent I bought.  Then, sometimes she would be fine with one for a while and then suddenly start getting rashes again.  Ugh.  Anyway, I've been making and using my own for a while now, and am just now sharing this.  Why?  Because I am finally 100% convinced that it is better than store-bought detergent.  Yesterday, Riley was cutting herself some strawberries and managed to get the juice ALL OVER her shirt.  I mean, I can't see how that much strawberry juice could have gotten on her shirt without her really trying LOL. Anyway, I told her to take it off and put it in the hamper, and I intended to wash it right away.  I forgot to.  Then I told myself that I'd pretreat the stains.  I forgot to do that too.  No matter, it came right out in the regular wash.  Nice.  Additionally, I washed Rudi's winter coat and the grime came out with a regular washing.

Riley has taken to creating blueprints.  Yeah.  She made a blueprint of a castle, complete with Master Bed Chamber, bed chamber, stairs, stable, towers, a moat, drawbridge, and a "home captuure."  I'm not sure where she got the name "home capture," since she seems to be talking about what I know as a murder hole where invaders get boiling water and rocks dumped down on them LOL.

Since Blogger has been the place I record everything, and refer to whenever I want to know if something happened, how many times it happened, or when it first happened, I am going to record this here.  Most already know it, but well...

Since yesterday was a warm day, we chose to go take a hike somewhere we hadn't been before.  Unfortunately, I let Rudi chose the location.  He chose Gilsland Farm, which still had a couple feet of snow, and it was freezing rain.  He took up up a hill that had the girls sinking in to mid-thigh, and when we got up the hill, we just decided to go back.  The trail was icy.  It was foggy.  A true New England March day.  Next time I pick where we're going!

Rudi had to go there.  Which shouldn't be surprising.  It was an interesting collection.  Basically, it was the head dude's personal collection that outgrew his house.  Very small, but very interesting.  Yes.  This dude, Loren Coleman, is apparently a cryptozoology expert, having written several books, worked as a consultant on the Mothman Prophesy movie, and is a regular on several television series, such as Monster Quest.  Strange the kind of people you can find in the little town or Portland, Maine.  It was in the back of a used bookstore.  After seeing the museum, we wandered around the bookstore and Riley shouted "Aw, yeah, bitches!" when she found the Harry Potter books.  Delightful.  I also found it strange, as we were leaving, to find an older couple who dressed their equally elderly-looking dog up for St. Patrick's Day, and decorated the Sasquatch to match, in order to take the dog's annual St. Patrick's Day picture.  Strange.

I never really got excellent pictures of Avery's new haircut (which isn't all that new now LOL) but here are the ones that I could find that show it, to some extent:

Nothing all that exciting has been going on.  It's rained a bit and thus melted some of the snow, so that's exciting for me.  Also, it seems to be climbing up into the mid-40s now, so perhaps spring really is on its way.  The neighbor has taken the snow blade off of his truck, so I am looking at that as a good sign.  You can actually see grass in some places!  The mud has started already, though, and it's not even "mud season" yet, so I am wondering what that will be like.

The speech therapy fight has resumed.  I don't know how many ways to say that I really can't stand the school speech therapist.  Really.  I rarely see her with a child, and when I do, the child is playing on the dry-erase board while the therapist sits on her computer.  She is saying, again, that Riley's speech is not sufficiently impacting her academics, so they want to wait and see.  So, as far as I can tell here are my options:

So, Avery just had to get a haircut.  I was tired of the constant rat's nest on the back of her head, and really, plain old long hair is just not flattering on her.  I found a kids hair cut place and we headed out.  It was a really neat place, decorated to the nines and the ladies who worked there were so child friendly.  I'd been to kids salons where it's decorated for children, but the employees obviously would rather not be cutting kids hair, but not this place.

Avery got a wedge haircut which is absolutely adorable!  They did a really good job.  Avery doesn't really like it, saying that the back is itchy.  I think because the hair is so short back there, the cut ends might make her itch.  I think she'll get over it.

We went to Trader Joe's yesterday and an elderly man, perhaps in his 70s, stopped us and said that Avery's haircut was the most adorable haircut he's ever seen, and that his "lady" is a beautician and spotted Avery's haircut as soon as they walked in.  It was nice of him, and made Avery a little more confident about her new do!'

There's something about a wedge haircut that just turns all the heads.  If you don't want attention, don't get your girl a wedge haircut!

I did take pictures, but on my cellphone so I'll have to upload them later.  The battery is dead now and it's charging so the GPS can guide us to Ikea!

Oh, yeah, almost forgot...Riley has another adult tooth coming in where her lateral incisor just fell out.  Thing is, she already has her two lateral incisors.  So, what is this mystery tooth?  Her cuspid isn't supposed to fall out until she's 9-12, and this tooth that is growing in has a flat edge like an incisor, not pointed like a cuspid.  I mean, I guess it can be a cuspid, but where is it going to go for the next few years until the baby cuspid falls out?  I am really wondering if she has an extra tooth.  I have a call out to a pediatric dentist to see if we can have it looked at (as well as all her other dental problems).  And why, oh why, does this kid's adult teeth always have to jump the gun and come through before the baby teeth have even gotten loose?  It's causing crowding and crooked teeth.  Argh...I see orthodontics in her future.

Night Two of our new bedtime strategy and the girls have slept in their rooms for two nights in a row.  No night-waking, so fussing, no nothing.

I have always read a lot to the girls at nighttime.  In fact, I read them to sleep.  I came to the realization that this was not helpful.  It prolonged bedtime and having them fall asleep that way wasn't helping them to learn to sleep on their own.  I moved story time to the living room, so it is a pre-bedtime ritual, not a bedtime ritual.  So far so good.  The television, obviously, is off during this time (Rudi can just deal with it for 30 minutes LOL).  They get into their pajamas, have sleepytime tea, and we read some Harry Potter, and some James and the Giant Peach.

I finally managed to produce a usable art space for the kids.  Yippee!!  I have had SO many failed attempts at this, but I think I learned from my mistakes.  First, the art area has to be the art space.  The only art space.  The place where all the art and craft supplies are gathered.  Otherwise, random acts of art will crop up all over the house.  We are trying to avoid this.  Second lesson, the old adage" out of sight, out of mind" is so very true when it comes to children.  Around this house, we have tons of empty cigar boxes.  Just tons.  I used them for art supplies.  Perfect, huh?  Well...no!  If the kids can't see the pastels in the cigar boxes, they will never ever use them.  This time I used small open baskets to hold chalk pastels and oil pastels.  The baskets were on sale at Joann's for about $2 each.  Sweet deal.  I am working on getting together old magazines for them to cut up, but unfortunately we recycled all of our old magazines before we moved.

So, clay class is a thing of the past.  I lied to Riley and told her that I could get my money back LOL.  Poor thing was so willing to trudge on through a sub-standard program rather than having me waste money.  So cute.  I need to pick up their clay creations at some point.

We ran out of propane on Monday.  No heat.  No hot water.  No cooking gas.  It sucked.  The propane people only deliver to South Portland on Tuesdays, and I noticed that we were low over the weekend.  In addition, with the storm coming, people who probably didn't really need propane panicked and ordered a delivery for Tuesday, so the company had to double-up on deliveries.  Yay.  This means that our propane guy who normally visits in the morning couldn't get to us until the afternoon.  Once I get a better idea on our usage, I can make sure that we don't run out again.  Like, how am I supposed to know how long 20 gallons will last us?  Or 10 gallons.  I mean, we were at 50 percent last time I checked, so I was surprised to find us hovering around zero over the weekend.  Yikes!

Riley loves reading.  Rudi loves reading, and buying books.  I love reading, and the library.  Rudi loves buying books for Riley.  I love checking books out of the library for Riley.  Who makes more sense?  Riley has a stack of books from the library, in addition to chapter books that she got for Christmas, and yet every time Rudi goes to Borders he buys her a book.  Ugh.

So, Riley and Avery have been taking clay class at the recreation center.  Actually, Avery went once then refused to go again.  I was all sorts of excited for them to be taking this class, thinking of how much they'd enjoy it.  I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting this.  Basically, they play with air-hardening clay for 1.5 hours.  Riley said that the teacher doesn't teach them anything about clay.  There is no firing, no glazing, no nothing that I would associate with a clay class.  However, Riley still enjoys it.  But, this is a 10-week session, and they've only had two classes so far, so I'm not confident that Riley will continue enjoying it.  I mean, we can play with clay in our house.  I wanted something extra, something that cannot be done at home.  Isn't that what classes are for?  If it matters, yes, we paid for the class.  I was, however, very very inexpensive.

The girls actually went outside and played in the snow.  Not altogether remarkable for Riley, but a very rare occurrence with Avery.  Riley was dying to try out her snowshoes.  She had fun running around in them.  Avery, I think, is heavy enough for her own, so we'll keep our eyes out for end-of-winter sales.  She certainly wants a pair, but I can't tell if she wants them because she want to use them, or if she wants them because everyone else in the family has a pair.  Ah, well, if we can get them as cheap as we got Riley's, it's no biggie.

What is wrong with me?  I can't believe I never posted the pics or blogged about it!  Dur!  These days, with my scattered brain, I go through iPhoto to be reminded what's been going on in my own life, then to blog about it, and came across the ear piercing pictures.  I still can't believe I didn't post about it...

Anyway, Riley got her ears pierced on her 7th birthday (a whopping three weeks ago LOL).  She was absolutely sure that she wanted them, and I thought that 7 was a common age to pierce ears, and old enough for her to understand what piercing entails.  She was SO indecisive about which earring to pick, it was driving me crazy!  The actual piercing went okay.  She cried, but didn't resist the second piercing.  She calmed right down after I suggested she pick out earrings for when she can change the studs.  Then she was super indecisive again about which pack of earrings to pick out!  One of her classmates also got her earrings as a birthday gift, and Riley is counting down the days until the 6 week healing period is over and she can change her earrings. 

So, I think I found a great doctor for the family.  At least, he's great on paper.  One, he is close to Rudi's age (as in, graduated medical school in 1980).  So, Rudi is more likely to listen to him LOL!  Second, he is conservative with medication, and is into homeopathic and alternative remedies.  Third, he is non-vax friendly, not having vaxed his own children.  Fourth, he is a family doctor, so I would have my first very own general practitioner since I left my pediatrician's practice at age 19.  Fifth, he is a participating provider with my insurance!  Sweetness!  The down side is that he is about 30 minutes away.  I don't see that as a big problem.

Riley started swimming lessons a week ago yesterday.  They are very serious about their swimming here.  Riley was *thisclose* to completing level 3 in Colorado Springs, but the standards are a lot more strict here. 

It is will great embarrassment that I reveal that the girls went sledding for the first time yesterday.  Yes, the first time.  I wasn't sure where a sled hill was, but searched online and found that the most popular sledding hill is at South Portland High, which is about .5 miles away.  Not too shabby.  Then, we realized that the sleds did not make the cut for the move.  So, Rudi went out in the snow storm to get cheap sleds.

Wow, Riley's growing up fast!  She's just maturing so much!  She carries herself like a big girl, talks like a big girl (although that's not new at all!).  Her poise is maturing, and her rhetoric is too.  I wish she didn't want to get her ears pierced, because that is certainly adding to the general air of grown-upness.  When in a good mood, she's easy on the eyes; when in a bad mood, she's terrible to behold.  She is so willing to help now, rather than being an instigator (usually).  Ah, my girl is seven!