The powers that be (Randy’s big brother), say that this is good for us.

Today was Micah’s first day of 2nd grade. 

He was pretty excited. 

He got Elias to put his little backpack on and rather unbeknownst to me, told him that he could get on the big bus with him and go to school with him.  Not realizing the the 2yr old takes the 7yr old very seriously, Micah went on his merry way as we walked to the bus stop, until I realized the full extent of what was about to happen when said big bus pulled up, if Micah himself did not re-explain to Elias which children were ACTUALLY going to get on the bus.  Micah did explain, and Elias was a little bit disappointed, but he got over it pretty quickly.

Here are some pictures of Micah and Serena at swimming lessons a few weeks ago. 

We're Ready!

We go to our local orchard every fall to get apples and pumpkins.  Usually we need to wear fleece and hats and all that warm stuff.  So, being one for traditions, I faithfully forced my family to gear up in their finest softness, only to humbly carry the fuzzies back to the van after like 5 minutes.  Oh well.  It was fun, and we got some great shots of bumpy squash too.

(Ok, this is a message to our Tech Support, since we know that you have Google reader, WHY WON’T IT TAKE ANY MORE PHOTOS!?! We go through the same procedure as we did for the beautiful picture just 1 inch above this here complaint, and it tells us in nasty red ink “The uploaded file could not be moved to the upload folder.” This is not promoting our self-esteem. (Perhaps if it said it in a nice way, like with soothing green text saying, “I am so sorry, but I cannot accept any more photos from you for completely unknown reasons. I hope to be able to better serve you in some nebulous other circumstances.” Nah. We’d still have to rant.)

So if you want more photos, click on the picture and it will take you to our Picasa Web Album. (If the blog is feeling obliging.)

Quick updates of random things, before I bring up something that I learned about from a handout I received at Micah's Kindergarten (sniff, sniff) orientation this morning:

*Elias is 9 weeks old now and he's really cute and smiley.  He also likes to eat rather often, even and sometimes especially during the time that grown people call "night" and like to sleep.  So, we're pretty exhausted these days (and nights).  But the Little Dude is getting chubbier by the minute, and who doesn't love to squeeze and kiss chubby baby thighs??

*We just got back from a week-long roadtrip in Newton.  Newton is our Dodge "Graham CrackerVan" according to Serena.  He also contains cheerios and all sorts of other crumbs from our trip that we have not yet taken out of him.  Anyway, so we packed up a 5 yr old, a 2 1/2 yr old, and a 2 month old and went on a trip that Google Maps said would take "1 day, 9 hours."  Even we began to doubt our sanity in selecting such an adventure for this summer.   But we wanted to visit Randy's 3 brothers and their families and they don't happen to live next door.  So we packed lots of diapers and lots of snacks, and made sure we used plenty of both to ensure a nice drive.  We also made sure we didn't get them mixed up, because no one wants a onesie full of soggy pretzels, now do they?  But it really was a nice trip and our kids did rather well for all the driving we did.  Of course we did try to make it extra exciting by leaving at 4:40 AM for the first leg of the trip and 2:40 AM on the fifth and final leg.  I mean, 3 out of 5 of us were up anyway, so why not just go?

*Micah starts Kindergarten next Wednesday.  He is very excited, and he does realize (I think) that it involves more than just riding a school bus. 

We got this 3 page handout at orientation this morning, all about the bus.  And no, it was not the lyrics to "The Wheels on the Bus" though that would have been more interesting than most of the 21 "Frequently Asked Questions."  But question 18 more than makes up for the other boring ones.  So much so that I got my lazy bones up off of the couch to get a highlighter from the desk to mark the finer points of interest.

The question reads: "Why are 39" seats in school buses rated for three children when they only will accommodate two?"

Part of the answer states that "In determining seating capacity of a bus, an allowable average rump width standard was established."  Yes, an AARWS!  And it goes on to say that "13" of rump width was suggested when a 3-3 seating plan was used".  Who figures this stuff out?  I'm half tempted to measure the rump widths in our family and see what combination of us could fit on the bus.  Or maybe I could ask Randy to make a pie chart of them somehow (not an actual pie, of course, because then the measurements would need to be altered a bit). 

Anyway, I just had to share that inspiring phrase.  I felt as though the handout morphed from a letter from the school district into a Dave Barry article on the joys of airline travel or something. 

And, since I blog oh-so-frequently, they have both given birth as well!

Isn't that sweet?

Since I haven't blogged since September, I thought I should maybe mention a few other highlights in our family:

I, too, am expecting.  Baby Pierogie is due to arrive somewhere around June 21st.  Serena currently says "girl" and Micah is still trying to hold onto his wish that I will have "one boy and one girl" despite our attempts to explain that there truly is only 1 baby in there and that as far as we can tell, this baby has only one gender.

Serena talks lots and lots now and it's very cute.  She loves going to Aldi with me and has become buds with Miss Keisha, the cashier who gives her TONS of attention.  (Although I think they've changed her schedule, as she hasn't been there the past few Wednesdays and so I don't know what to do because I ALWAYS do my food shopping on Wednesday mornings and I can't even fathom how I'd go on if I had to CHANGE something – heaven forbid!)

We have joined the club of at-first-reluctant-but-then-accepting minivan owners.  We purchased Newton (yes, as in fig newton, only he's big newton) on a Wednesday in February, crashed him 3 days later, got him back in early March, and have been pretty much terrified to drive him since.  So he sits safely in the garage for the most part, awaiting Pierogie's arrival, so that we will actually DRIVE him (without feeling guilty b/c he uses more gas than Bobo – yes, you'd be hard-pressed to find cheaper people than us…).  But he's CUTE and we got an amazing deal on him and he has some great storage features (so, really, since we're not driving him, we basically added a closet to our garage, thus maximizing storage space!!)

 Micah sleeps in a big boy's bed – finally!  (LONG STORY - rather linked with the crashing of Newton.  Let's just say that in an effort to be cheap, we ended up spending over $650 for a $40 craigslist find…)

What else?  Let's see, Micah is loving preschool and enjoyed registering for kindergarten.

Randy spoke about his occupation at Micah's preschool.  Those kids now know, if nothing else, what a plume is.

As for me, I can occasionally make it through an entire afternoon without falling asleep on the couch!

The cats are acting as they always do: Sam needs to be "put away" when guests come, and Toby pees on things.

Randy just informed me that had I not blogged today, he was scheming to post an entry tonight that teased of containing actual content, but then only said, "April Fools!"  So, for those of you who like to know a few tidbits about our life, I'm glad I beat him to it. 

Thanks for reading!

If you click on the pics, you will be magically [thank you, Tina (and James for the "magic")] taken to our WebAlbum, where unknown quantities of happiness and bliss are just waiting for your arrival.

Well, not wanting to miss out on a conversation with someone at Aldi, Micah pipes up from the back of the cart, "I'm 4!" 

OK, stop right there.  Pretend you are the other guy (only pretend that you're NOT staring oddly at a small girl, you're just you – decent, well-meaning, produce-purchasing you, interacting with a mom and her 2 kids).  How do you respond to the little boy who wants to be noticed?  Let's brainstorm some possible responses, shall we?  A) "Oh, wow – 4!  That's great!"  B) "What a big boy!"  C) "Well I'm 52 years old now, but what I liked most about being 4 is that when you go to the doctor, you get a sticker, not a prostate exam!"  Any of those would have been acceptable, right?  (Although I'm not sure I'm quite ready to explain to Micah that he won't be able to go to his same pediatrician when he's 52…)

But this guy chose option D), which was to look up at Micah as if he hadn't even noticed him before and say, in all sincerity, with not a hint of humor, "I don't care about that."  Micah and I took our turns to stare now.  I kept waiting for the guy to say, "I'm just kidding buddy!  I'm glad to hear that you're 4 – you certainly have better manners than I do…" but the closest thing I got was a little look that lasted half a second that said, basically, "perhaps that was a bit harsh, but who cares??" and then we parted ways.  As soon as I got out of earshot, and didn't care too much if I wasn't entirely out yet, I leaned down to Micah and said, "I care!"

What's the deal with that?

So last Wednesday was our 10th anniversary. We just got back from a cruise to Bermuda. Well, not quite exactly that, though we’re holding out for that someday.

We were on vacation in the Poconos with my side of the family and it had been arranged beforehand that from after lunch on, my mom would watch our kids and we would go on a Special Anniversary Date for the rest of the day.

Here is what we envisioned for our Big Day:

1) We would rent a jet ski and repeatedly hurl ourselves into the water as we attempted to both stay on at the same time and ride around the lake in a romantic fashion.

2) We would go somewhere pretty and take a nice walk, enjoying beautiful scenery and magical conversation.

3) We would go to the nice lakefront restaurant we kept driving by for the past few days to eat dinner.

4) We would take yet another magically romantic and breathtakingly beautiful walk, probably along the lake.

5) We would go somewhere amazingly yummy to hunt down some magical dessert, of the ice cream based variety.

6) We would eventually wander back to our condo, being reasonably sure the kids were asleep, and take a nice bubble bath, relax a bit, and go to bed.

Here is what actually happened:

1) We drove to a mall in Scranton in the torrential rain, which got so loud that we couldn’t even hear our John Grisham audio book at some points.

2) We shared a Cinnabon, which was FABULOUS – I just LOVE those things and practically cried out loud when our mall (which has TWO Auntie Anne’s, whose pretzels are also fine fare, but come on, two???) took away the Cinnabon.

3) We walked around and purchased the following items: 2 pieces of Gertrude Hawk chocolate and a sympathy card for my sister, who had to leave the vacation for an evening because her favorite kitty, who had been diagnosed with cancer about a year ago, took a turn for the worst and they had to put him to sleep. SO SAD! Timmy was a great kitty, the most laid back cat you could ever meet.

4) We drove back to our condo to pick up our sunglasses because the sun came out for a few minutes and we thought maybe we could still get a walk in. (Editor’s note: we should have just skipped this step).

5) We ate a nice dinner at the rainfront restaurant.

6) We began to take a walk in our raincoats (wearing our raincoats; we were gonna actually walk on the path, see?), got about 8 yards from our car, heard thunder, came back to the car and decided to just sit there and listen to the rest of our audio book. As my sister said later, “Wow! That is REALLY nerdy!”

7) We went to an ice cream place, the kind where you can’t go inside, even if it’s raining, and before we ordered from the nice (and bored) people inside the window hole, decided that we needed to use some bathroom facilities. One of the younger girls behind the window hole told us, with actual glee and giddiness in her manner, that we’d need to “walk through the rain” to get there and then proceeded to give us these really complicated directions to what turned out to be the porta potties out back. So, as I held my husband’s hand and ran through pouring rain to 2 porta potties sitting side by side, I said something to the effect of, “This is not quite how I pictured celebrating our 10th anniversary!!” I mean, we couldn’t even flush!!
We ordered some yummy ice cream from the window people and sat on the sidewalk where it was dry and ate our dessert, while enjoying the view of the parking lot.

9) We went back to our condo, took a bubble bath (well, it was actually a chocolate bath with this stuff that I made at MOPS that was supposed to be for just me I think, cuz we made it at the spa day that was teaching us how to relax and unwind and pamper ourselves as women, but Randy really likes chocolate and we didn’t have anything else, and so there you have it) relaxed a bit, and went to bed.

So you can see some similarities between the two itineraries, but also some striking contrasts. All in all, it was a fun and memorable day. And just so you don’t start thinking not nice things about my husband, he had already planned (before he even knew the forecast) to take me to my favorite place on earth in just a few weeks for an entire weekend!! (Now, if we can just get the childcare lined up…) And though the brochure doesn’t specify, I’m pretty sure there are indoor, flushing toilets there!