Testing

Hmm, can now blog from my iPhone. Does this mean I'll actually post from time to time? We shall see.

Money for nothin'

It's been a rough couple of weeks. We've been living in repetitious cycle, consisting of the following fun activities with our daughter:

Step 1: Refuse to do something (such as brushing teeth)
Step 2: Refuse 2nd request, stomp feet
Step 3: Refuse more loudly. Scream if necessary.
Step 4: Start the waterworks. Continue refusing, even when presented with potential negative consequence, such as possible time out.
Step 5: Scream, yell, and/or hit, as needed when being escorted to naughty chair
Step 6: continue yelling and screaming. Stand firmly, arms crossed, chin up when refusing to sit in naughty chair. Ignore various warnings that time portion of punishment will not start until properly seated
Step 7: finally sit. Try to play with cat, talk to /yell at parents while seated
Step 8: When finally released from punishment, behave for 3 minutes before finding another reason to repeat cycle.
Start again with Step 1.

In an effort to break the cycle, we decided to put in an incentive plan for good behavior - a star board. If she behaves (as she ought to without promise of recompense) she gets a star. If she gets 10 stars, she can pick a prize from a bowl of $1 target bin goodies we picked up this weekend. Stars do get taken away if she behaves badly. So far, so good. She's up to 5 stars, and is enthusiastic about earning more. Let's hope we've turned a corner!

I Statements

Ava continues to work on her "I statements" at home. These are phrases such as "I feel sad when I have to go home at the end of the day". Apparently, according to one of her teachers, this exercise is supposed to enable her to communicate why she is behaving the way she is, and so on. (Because all of you who have met Ava know that she's seriously deficient in communication skill.)
At our house, however, the I statement is a clearly manipulative tool, meant to garner pity and gain one's hearts desire. "I feel sad when you won't take me to a different park," and "I feel mad when you punish me for throwing the kitty".
Durr. Yesterday, Casey and I must have spent the better part of our day lecturing how the world did not revolve around Ava, and that how she was really barking up the wrong tree if she thought such blatantly manipulative statements would convince two parents who were both youngest children, and as such, were complete masters of much more sophisticated tools of parental manipulation.
Much yelling. Many many trips to the Naughty chair.
Finally, near the end of the night, after stories were read, and Ava was in bed, I thought we were finally having a breakthrough with the lesson. When I told her that she needed to care more about what other people thought or wanted, she replied: "I care about Daddy's feelings." Ok, I get a skip. I can live with that.
Then, after rubbing her back for a time in our nightly ritual, I lean over to kiss her goodnight. I hear her whisper, "I'm sorry, Mommy." My heart melts. Until she continues: "I'm sorry I didn't get to go to the park."

First Day of Kindergarten!

I have to say, I'm kind of stunned.

After all my worries, all the fears that such a big change would be hard to take, Ava practically ran away from her dad and I to get to her first day of Kindergarten.

The morning began well - she woke up by herself, and even got herself dressed, without prompting, and before breakfast and cartoons. This is unprecedented. There were no last minute attempts to change outfit to a dress, nor complaints about wearing shoes instead of sandals. Again, unprecedented. It felt strangely as if she'd been doing this for months.

We did get some photos, and the Celebutant posing was about the only throwback to the Ava of the summer.

When it was finally time to leave for the school, she literally bolted! We had to keep telling her to slow down, and wait for Mom and Dad!

She picked the backpack herself. The tee shirt also. Also hippie purse, although I kind of like that one. As much as it pains me, she should be allowed some artistic expression.

Once she met her new teacher, Mrs. Fairchild, she was happy as could be and glommed on to her like the teacher's pet /pest she was meant to be. ( I knew she got some of my genes! Casey said if she'd been like him, she would have either hidden in a corner, or hit the other kids.) Ava stuck by Mrs. Fairchild's side, and introduced herself to others when Mrs. Fairchild went to meet them! (yeah, ok, BIG teacher's pet.) Soon enough, it was time to line up, and say goodbye to Mom and Dad.

In a way, it was really anti-climactic! Or maybe I should say well organized and planned, and in perfect harmony with the personality traits of our little-miss-sociable.

We decided to let her have the full day - kindergarten, afternoon wondergarden, and a bit of the "kids club" afterschool program on the first day, so that she could meet everyone, and not be the odd-man-out on the second day. I was concerned that it might be too much...what if she'd had a melt-down mid day and now felt abandoned?

When we went to pick her up at 4:15, she saw us come in the door...and started pouting that she had to leave. That's our girl.

I Love my Mother in Law

She watches my daughter 3 days a week in the summer (at her house), and wishes it were 5.

She babysits on weekends. She'll drive an hour to come to our house to do this.

She openly wonders how her son managed to get such a fine wife.

She buys me goofy dish towels, and handy kitchen gizmos.
She came over and spent one weekend helping me strip, sand, and varnish 24 cabinets/drawers in 85 degree weather.

She came two weeks later for another weekend to help me prep and then paint the kitchen. Hell, she did MOST of the prepping and painting herself!!

I love that woman.

The flash makes the cabinets and paint look a little weird...green is a bit more muted, and cabinets less shiny. But you get the idea. Not Architectural Digest, but not bad for what we had to work with!

Nature Walk

Jen was kind enough to take pity on me and my husband-less state a week ago, and suggested we meet up for a Nature Walk. We went to the Lloyd Stage Nature center in Troy, a place I'd never even heard of before, but it was really nice - especially for the purpose of doing a circuit with 5 and 6 year old nature lovers. Ava then invited herself over to Jen's house, to which Jen graciously accepted, and we all hung out for a bit. Very nice Saturday. Sure beats kitchen remodelling, which has seemed to be my life in August.

First Baseball Game

Thanks to Grandma Joan and Grampa John, Ava went to see her first Tiger's baseball game on August 29th. It started out a bit drizzly, but not too bad. Ava loved all the people in the stands that she could talk to, and younger kids to smile and make faces with. She was also bound and determined to get some ice cream out of the adventure.

Here she is transitioning from the faux-unhappy face that she's been so fond of lately, to laughing. You will note that she's not exactly in the best positon to be watching the game.

After about three or four innings, the ice cream man still hadn't come by, so we went off to explore the other delights of Comerica Park, including the Ferris wheel. I was really stunned and amazed at the dearth of ice cream vendors....we covered a good 1/4 of the perimeter without so much as a popsicle to be found.

We did finally find one near the ferris wheel, though we had to "settle" for scoop ice cream in a waffle cone, instead of the desired ice cream bar. Life is full of disappointments, I know.

The ballpark also provided Ava with a first-time fan certificate, and a poster of her "favorite" Tiger, Justin Veerlander. Granted, it's the only Tiger she knows, but not a bad choice...and I always thought he looks a lot like Casey, if Casey had facial hair. I hate to even write that line, because knowing Casey, it's like daring him to grow some ridiculous facial hair.

Tigers did well, and we wound up getting out of there just in time before the rain started coming down, and the sugar started wearing off.

20th Reunion weekend

Yep, I'm old. Or, as my dad so delicately put it when I told him I was going to my 2oth High School reunion, " Aw, Sh*t."

There was a bit of drama in the run up to this fabulous event - in the form of who, exactly, was going to come with me. In the end, Dear Husband was called into reluctant action, but was happy to be told his tour of duty would end when the open bar did.

Before the actual reunion, I had a little mini-reunion with Jen, Stacy and Lori at the Chalet. Frieda was working it that night, and plying us with more drinks than we really ought to have had. (She did reciprocate Katie and Tim's shout-out, BTW). We gals had a fantastic time chatting and catching up with Lori, who we hadn't seen in a while. We also had a sneek peek of Saturday in the form of some other Seaholmites who were also making the pilgrimage to the Chalet. Too much fun.

Friday night there was to be a bar night at Dick O'Dow's in B'ham, but where the mind might have been willing, the body definately was not. Aside from that, I generally try to make myself available to my child and husband for at least a couple of hours a week.

Saturday, I did get a happy surprise in that Stacy, at the last minute decided to go to the reunion. Casey tried to get a last minute reprive, but to no avail. Off we went to Birmingham.

I had a genuine blast. You forget how many people you know, sometimes, and how long some of these folks have known you. At least 5-10 of the folks I talked to have known me since I was 6. I was also really pleased to see how great everyone looked. Yeah, I know this statement is being met with huge guffaws, but truly. No, I'm not going all Melanie-Hamilton-Booth on you, I just figure it means I don't look so old either!! Probably my only regret is that I couldn't keep myself off of the dance floor. Not that I didn't enjoy dancing, or worried about being judged for my usually-over-enthusiastic gyrations, but because there were so many people I missed talking to...should have focused more on that. It was like my wedding - it went by so quickly that I was stunned when it was over. But, those of you who know me well understand that me passing up dancing when there's great music is a virtual impossibility for me. Depending on who's reading this, you'll all either be proud or ashamed of me, as I did manage to control myself enough to pass up on the invites to continue the party at 220. Had to drive myself home, after all.

Turns out that was a good idea, since I got pulled over about three blocks after leaving the parking lot. (Apparently, I missed a no-turn-on-red sign.) Thankfully, the ridiculously child-like cop let me off with a warning. (another reason to always fight your tickets people...if I'd had a record I'm sure I'd have gotten a ticket).

The other advantage of not partying too hard was that I could really enjoy going out to golf with Casey and Ava on Sunday. Still golfed horribly, but that's noting new or surprising!

The summer of bummer

I realized, when giving someone the rundown of what I've been up to in the last couple of weeks, it's really been kind of cruddy summer. Plans cancelled, friends hurt, husband unable to golf, kitty dead, all kinds of household annoyances, cold and relatively rainy summer. Hopefully, this weekend will be a turning point, and we can banish "The Summer of Bummer" for the rest of the season.

Last weekend, we pulled up the parquet on the kitchen floor, trying to prep for a new floor. Guess what we found? More floor. Yep, 60 year old linoleum under about a quarter inch of glue. The wallpaper-happy-glue-crazed prior owner strikes again. We were hoping that by removing the parquet ourselves, we could significantly reduce the cost of the new floor, but perhaps no...we'll have to see. Let the quoting process begin! On a happier note, our garbage men rock, and will take anything away, including overloaded barrels of wooden tile.

Sunday, I took Ava to the water park and beach at Kensington. Here she is, shivering under her towel. 72 degrees and windy isn't the best weather for pool play....

This past week was birthday festival at the Fox house --- Casey and I took off his birthday, the 16th, and mine the next day, and got to do a host of things we like to do - eat out, go see HP movie, go to the zoo, go out to dinner, etc. Very nice. We also managed to be somewhat productive, and shopped for fridge, etc. We're such party animals these days.

Note to my dear readers: Save the date: Saturday, July 16, 2011. Planning ahead for Casey's 39th and my 40th.

Remembering Roadkill (aka Kitty, Big Dummy, Ol' Blue)

For those of you who didn't know, we had to put Roadkill to sleep this weekend. He stared getting sick this spring, and we found out his kidneys were shutting down. As you know, we're not the type to shell out thousands on cat dialysis, and the vet did say that sometimes these things do resolve themselves, so we focused on keeping him happy, and trying to get him to eat food with a lower protein content. Alas, he seemed to be turned off by eating, and kept getting thinner and thinner, no matter what we tried, including his original food. We've been debating what to do for a couple of weeks, as he's been a little bag of fluff and bones. We decided that while he still seemed happy, best to wait it out, love him up as much as possible, and if the time came when he seemed to be suffering, we'd put him to sleep.

Last week, he took a turn for the worse, and stopped drinking. We tried putting some fluids into him (vet gave us a kitty IV), but on Friday night he was laying on the bathroom floor with labored breathing. Finally, Saturday morning, he was barely concious and couldn't stand, so we decided the moment had arrived. We explained to Ava what was going on, and we all cried a little, and hugged and kissed him goodbye. Casey took him to the emergency vet.

We will all miss our big, dumb, slow, huggable love muffin. He may not have been graceful, or brilliant, but he was loyal, quiet, affectionate, and maintained a perfect track record with the litter box, all the way till the end. He was clever enough in his own way...he knew I was a total sucker for him when he sat up, so he'd be sitting up in the kitchen when I'd wake up in the morning, just waiting to be flopped over for a belly rub. Casey had him since he was a little kitten, when the two were almost inseparable, so he's understandably upset, although cheered by the fact that Big Kitty had a very good, and for his breed, a long life. We'll miss him very much.