could have been worse

A has a new teacher who is always there when I pick her up in the afternoons. I don't know if this teacher just loooooooves A or does this for everyone...but she always tells me a Fun Fact about A. One day, she told me that they were playing Memory and A kicked everyone's ass. And, yesterday was no different.

"A was totally cracking me up today," she told me.
"Oh, really?"
"Yes, she made a microphone out of legos and was singing for the entire class!"
"Oh! That sounds like my girl."
"Yes, she was singing...uh...what's that song from the radio?"

This was where I started to get nervous. We've been listening to XM a lot lately, and sometimes my girls really like inappropriate songs. I started praying to myself please don't say Ke$ha's TikTok.

"TAYLOR SWIFT! That's right! I was really impressed at how she knew all the words."

Crisis averted...for now.

will run for cheesesteaks

So I had a wild and crazy Saturday evening. If by wild and crazy, you mean registering myself for a 10-mile race in 10 weeks. Which I totally do. Come May 2nd...you wanna know what I'll be doing?

Broad Street is Philly's version of the Cherry Blossom.

"But, Slacker Mama," you say, "don't you kind of hate running?"

Why, yes. Yes, I do. But I was tricked talked into running it by one of my best friends...so I really couldn't say no. Bonus! She hates running as much as I do!

I'm going to try start posting updates on training on my other blog. You know, the one I update even less than this one. We'll see how this all turns out.

Best case scenerio: I learn to love running.
Worst case scenario: I get a cool T-shirt.

candy detective

We were hanging out last night, when I noticed something strange.
"Hey, A. Why is your finger green?"
"I was eating candy."
John explained that E had received even *more* candy yesterday...and that the girls had snuck off and eaten when they got home.
"You were eating Fun Dip, weren't you? And since it was E's candy, you used your finger to eat it!"
"How did you know, mama?"

 

Sometimes, a mother learns from experience.

putting the slacker in slacker mama

Today was E's first day back to school since the week before last. And it was delayed 2 hours (and will be the rest of this week). For those of you keeping score, girlfriend has been out of school 10 of the last 13 school days due to snow, a teacher workday and President's Day. Craziness.

So, on Friday of last week, we received an e-mail from E's teacher talking about Valentine's Day...how they weren't having a class party for it, but if you wanted to send Valentines, here was the class list. I figured since the earliest they would go back to school was the 16th, and there weren't any official Valentine's Day activities, everyone would basically not buy cards to exchange.

Holy hell was I wrong. E came home with a bag full of Valentines. And most of them included candy despite the "No Candy" request in the e-mail. So the class parents? Suck-ups AND not very good listeners.

Luckily, E was perfectly happy with just receiving and didn't seem to notice that she didn't pass out any Valentine's to her friends. Which might speak more to her mooch-iness than her happy-go-luckiness. But either way, it's a win for me.

I mean I don't even buy cards for my family...I considered one of the brightspots of all this snow was bypassing the world's stupidest holiday altogether!

to my valentines

Though I might not show my love by remembering to buying Valentine's Day cards (in my defense...we've been housebound! And moving as a family unit otherwise!)...there's no place I'd rather be than snuggling with you all.


Happy Valentine's Day, John!
Happy Valentime's Day, E!*
Happy Balentime's Day, A!*
I love you all!




*thought I would wish them Happy Valentine's Day how they say it.

to do? to done!

After breakfast, we bandied about a gazillion ideas on what we could do to break the cabin fever that had infected our family. E decided it would be easiest if we made a list of all the things we wanted to do.

 

• lunch


• boling (bowling)


• back cooks (bake cookies)


• playing


• diner (dinner)


• dzert (dessert)


• go to bed

Yes, she crossed things off the list after we accomplished them. And, she asked if she could make a To Do list for tomorrow...and every Saturday and Sunday.

My girl is gonna be a list maker. I couldn't be more proud!

when you inherit your father's sense of fashion

Remember when I said I'd be taking pictures of The Blizzard of 2009 - Round 2 (the official term used by the newscasters). So...uh...yeah. Apparently, there's not so much "Fun in the Snow" to be had when 30+ mph winds whip the snow directly in your face no matter which direction you stand. So, not a lot of snowy frolics for the Slacker family yesterday.

I did manage to take a few pictures of the girls and what they choose to wear yesterday. They thought they looked awesome. And not in a crazy, unmatched Punky Brewster kind of way.

Evening Attire

 

The Daytime Look

 

And can we discuss how my girls seem unwilling to let go of their summer clothes? What is up with that? They wore bathing suits around the house during the last snow storm. I get cold just looking at them.

snowed in...send wine!

After getting close to two feet of snow of Friday and Saturday, bringing the region to a grinding halt, we're supposed to get another 8-10" tonight and tomorrow. Can someone explain to me where we are supposed to *put* more snow...'cause here are pictures from Sunday.

Notice the snow behind A? That's the pile of snow generated from shovelling the drive earlier that morning!

Uh? Timber?

The view out our front porch...please note how long our driveway is. Never buying a house on a pipestem again!

Not going to lie...trying to balance trying to work with both girls home from school has been overwhelming to say the least. Luckily, we discovered that E can go to A's school on a daily drop-in basis, which we put to use today (and will likely do later this week, too)! And I have to give Nonna (and Pop-pop) mad props for continuing to offer their help!

More pictures of this next round to come soon!

And, in case you were worried, the title of this post was just being cutesy. Our wine stockpile was replinished (thankfully) today by John, who stopped by Wegmans to pick up the essentials...beer, wine, bread and milk. But, if you want to send me wine, feel free to!

earning their keep

Yesterday was a "Snow Day" for E. It was kind of ridiculous...sure we had gotten a few inches of snow, but the roads were pretty clear by the time we got up. It should have been a 2-hour delay at most.

Anyhoo, the girls were home and Nonna came over to watch them so I could get some work done (because work-at-home moms? how the hell do you do it?!?!?). The kiddos wanted to go out and play in the snow...so I had them put in a little manual labor while they were out there.



And before you get all "Child labor laws!" on me, please note that they only had to do the front walk...the driveway was totally clear. And it wasn't all work and no play. They also built a mighty fine snowman, too.

And, I must give one more huge shout-out to Nonna for coming over. She's wathced the kiddos TWICE this week -- yesterday and on Monday, which was a teacher workday. Without her help, I probably would have collapsed in a heap of stress and worry on how I was going to get all my work done.

conspiracy theory

I'm pretty sure the only reason Groundhog Day is still a big deal is because preschool and elementary school teachers love all of the craft possiblities.