Apparently some of us are getting older...

Of course I am still incredibly young and vibrant but my daughter is aging. She will be 12 next month and I have been mentally preparing myself to enter the phase of life where I have a child who is in the Young Women's Program at church.

Though I am still incredibly young and vibrant it seems weird that I have arrived at this stage. Because I have a tendency to freak-out I have tried to stave emotional imbalance by reminders and personal awareness of the impending Young Women's experience.

I am thrilled that Miss 'A' will be able to experience so many new things and have so many wonderful women influence her life.

I am less thrilled that this marks the beginning of my children having activities in the evening. I love spending time with them before bed and I know that as they are aging (though I am still incredibly young and vibrant) this type of family time will be less and less frequent.

I was thrown for a loop yesterday when we discovered that though Miss 'A' still has one more month till she is officially a part of this amazing program she needed to attend an activity to certify for Girls Camp this summer.

I drove her to the church right at the time we should have been sitting down to play a game or watch 'America's Funniest Home Videos'. She was nervous but excited but I was mentally unprepared for this momentous event.

On the first day of middle school (while all the kids in the neighborhood walked to the bus by themselves for the first time) my baby wanted me to walk with her. She even held my hand. When we were in view of the kids waiting for the bus I asked if she wanted me to stay with her or go home - she didn't answer but clung to my hand more tightly, pulling me to the bus stop where I waited with her friends. She didn't let go of my hand until it was her turn to get on the bus.

Last night, I tried to hold her hand while we were walking into the church. She sweetly smiled at me as she pulled her hand away. When we got inside I could tell that she was anxious so I asked if she wanted me to stay with her until she found someone that she knew. She told me that she was okay, and still smiling sweetly she walked off.

And so it begins. Though I am still young and vibrant I have entered the phase of life where my children will have evening activities. The phase of life where that time spent together before bed will come to an end. The phase of life where my kids will not need me quite so much anymore. Sniff.

They will be strong - and independent, which is what every young and vibrant Mother wants.

I would just like to make this one request: could someone (I don't care who) provide me with more than a few hours warning so that I can plan my young and vibrant freak-out accordingly?

Please and Thank You.

Apparently I am accident prone (part 2)...

Mom walks down steps.

Mom texts whilst walking down said steps.

Small object waits on bottom step.

Mom steps on small object.

Mom rolls ankle.

Mom's favorite flip flop is broken.

Mom limps to sofa.

Mom lays on sofa sweating profusely wondering if pain from rolled ankle is worse than child birth.

Mom's ankle looks like golf ball.

11 year old daughter mocks Mom for texting at inappropriate time.

Daughter mocks Mom for lack of grace.

Daughter should go play with barbies.

Apparently I will be calling Grandma if I need plumbing help...

Last week was a much anticipated spring break. It was chock full of hours spent on the road as my Mom and I took the kids to Williamsburg, the Hub and I went to Maryland's Eastern Shore, then the Hub and I took the kids back to Williamsburg for a second round of fun.

What does this have to do with dismembered insects and reptiles? (I will get to the Grandma with the pipe cutter later).

Well - last fall the fam-damily was on a night walk with flash lights. As we wound our way through the paved trails the kids kept a close watch for animal life. Mr.N who has a particularly keen eye was bringing up the tail end of our party when he let out a horrific scream. Running back to see what was wrong we found Mr.N kneeling on the ground shinning his light on a small, writhing, injured snake. It was nearly-headless, probably because one of us had unknowingly stepped on it as we walked by. Mr.N cried for the poor snake - for two days.

This brings us to the wingless fly. The kids were in the car - 'patiently' waiting for me and Mom to get our spring break behinds on the road. Through the opened back of our trusty Honda Pilot an unsuspecting fly entered the vehicle eliciting screams from Mr.Z who has a strong fear for all winged things that buzz. (Likely born from an incident involving thigh-high casts and the inability to escape a large bee). Trying to save his brother from the terrifying fly, Mr.N selflessly pulled the baseball hat from his head and gave the fly a mighty swat in the direction of an open door saving Mr.Z from said insect. Mr.N then got out of the car to inspect the fly which was squirming on the driveway.

Now - I understand Mr.N's grief over the nearly-headless snake. I can appreciate that to a 10 year old boy a snake is a lovable thing - but to shed tears over a wingless fly? Let's just say the boy has a strangely tender heart...and leave it at that.

The remainder of spring break was dismemberment-free. But with his knack for entertaining with unusual commentary, Mr.Z provided us with several memorable scenarios.

1. While at Colonial Williamsburg we paid a visit to Patrick Henry. As he answered a bevy of questions from curious and educated visitors Mr.Z raised a hand and asked: "When you said 'give me liberty or give me death - which one did they give you"?

2. While at Busch Gardens we visited the animal park and were listening to a ranger who - according to his name tag was called Gii. Gii was telling us about a smallish bird when Mr.Z again raised his hand and asked "If you were going to draw this bird, which part would you draw first"?

The answer according to Gii? The feet. Obviously.

Incidentally, Miss.A got a lot of practice in with her eye rolling at the antics of her brothers as all good nearly-12-year-old girls should.

As for Grandma and the pipe cutters: she usually brings a smallish bag when traveling to avoid having to wait at baggage claim. However, 0n this particular trip she had to check her bag because airport security would not let her bring a pipe cutter in her carry on.

How many Grandma's bring a pipe cutter when they come to visit their grandkids? I am going to venture a guess and say 'one'. And she truly is an awesome Grandma because without those pipe cutter we could not have made PVC marshmallow shooters or irrigation tube hula hoops.

Incidentally (again), I was going to make a few more marshmallow guns after Grandma left so I asked my neighbor (who is a plumber) if I could borrow his pipe cutter. He pulled one out of his ginormous tool box in his 'Mr. Plumber' truck for me to use. And guess what?

Grandma's pipe cutter kicked the plumber's pipe cutter's butt.

Which made me think:

If I were going to draw a Grandma with a truly awesome pipe cutter which part I would draw first?

Maybe I need to take a quick trip to Busch Gardens to ask Gii.

Apparently the Easter Bunny sparkles...

You remember Mr.Z? The kid who had trouble believing in Santa this past December because the red clad, jolly, rotund man at the mall had gold zippers on his boots? Well - it seems that the Easter Bunny is subject to no such scrutiny.

Me: Hey - Mr. Z?

Z: What?

Me: Do you believe in the Easter Bunny?

Z: (thoughtful) Hmmmm. A giant bunny who lays plastic eggs filled with candy? Hmmmm................(with strong conviction) Yep! I believe in him! You know when he hops he leaves sparkly stuff on the ground! That sure is cool!

I don't know who decided that a candy bearing rabbit was a good way to celebrate the birth of Christ, but I would like to thank them. My kids are getting too old too fast and all too soon our holidays will lack the sweet innocence of childhood.

Here is to the Easter Bunny in all of his plastic egg laying, sugar-ific, sparkly glory.

Deep thoughts about Olympic Ice Dancing.

Mr. Z:

I bet they have lots of bandages at practice.
Maybe that girl is friends with swans.

Mr. N:
Boy - in skating you see a lot of girls underwear

Apparently the mall Santa needs to Up his Game...

Mr. Z is a thinker. He possesses wisdom and understanding far beyond his six years that is humorous at times and alarming at others.

For the past few months he has been trying to rationalize the existence of Santa. He has a strong opinion that magic is not real - which has caused him to doubt - but wanting so badly to believe he came to the dubious conclusion that "the Christmas kind of magic is real but all the other magic stuff is made up by grown-up's who are trying to trick kids."

It kind of reminds me of the time a certain cousin told Miss 'A' that the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa were not real. Later, my daughter told me "I kind figured that it was true about the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy but why would Jessica lie about Santa"?

Today at the Mall Mr. Z begged me to stop and see Santa. He had changed his mind from wanting a crayon maker to "wanting 2 pet frogs more than anything in the world". (Incidentally I already have the frogs because I knew he would want them - they have been living in my closet since Thanksgiving due to a shipping miscalculation on my part).

While standing in line Mr. Z evaluated the man in the red suit.

He started with the beard - which passed scrutiny because it looked quite real. Unfortunately this Santa did not look plump enough to satisfy my son. Plus, this Santa had gold zippers on his boots which Mr. 'Z' told me was entirely innacurate. (Apparently there are no zippers on authentic Santa boots - just in case you want perform an inspection at your local mall).

But - willing to give him a chance - my boy told me that he was just going to ask 'that guy' if he was the real Santa.

When we got to the front of the line Mr. Z climbed onto Santa's lap.

Santa: Hello - what is your name?
Mr. Z: (rolls eyes) That's it. Mom - this guy doesn't even know my name I told you he wasn't fat enough.

He hopped of the surprised Santa's lap grabbed a sucker from a big bin (without waiting for it to be offered) and kind of shook it at me.

Mr. Z: See - he doesn't even have candy canes. Sheesh! Let's go!

And so we did.

Good thing I didn't pay for an overpriced picture of my suspicious, attitudinal, grabby six year old rolling his eyes at a sucker-bearing, gaunt Santa with gold zippers on his boots.

Sheesh!

Apparently I need to do the laundry...

An ingenuitive boy will substitue swimwear for underwear when Mom has been to sick to keep up on the laundry.

And indeed, Mr. Z is ingenuitive.

I seem to have kicked the Killer Cold From XXXX -but October -the WHOLE feverish month of October- was another story.

I think that Mom's should be automatically immune to any illness but ESPECIALLY to a killer cold that lasts for FOUR weeks! One morning, when I was feeling particularly crappy, Mr. N gave me a quick hug on his way out the door to catch the bus and said:

"I hope you don't have the swine flu and die! Bye"!

If that is not love, I don't know what is.

Miss A was very diligent for the whole month to keep a careful distance from me to avoid over- exposure to any of my persistent germs. I have no idea how much antibacterial hand gel she used but I did notice that my rather large supply (I stocked up when there was a bunch on sale) has been depleted.