V-Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yep, I know a lot of people don't like the holiday, either because they feel they don't have someone special to spend it with, or because they think if you have someone special, you shouldn't need a particular day to celebrate your love.

To the first, I say: phooey. The holiday is slanted toward romance, true, but there's no rule that says it has to be about eros. One of the most touching Valentine traditions I've ever heard of was a man I worked with for a while who took his mother out to dinner every Valentine's Day. (And before you get all cynical on me, let me assure you that he did, in fact, have a healthy romantic life.) Celebrate philia and enjoy your family, or storge and appreciate your friends, or go even broader and celebrate agape by doing something for your fellow man. If you don't have any of those kinds of love to celebrate... then you have worse problems than a few sour grapes about a lack of romance in your life.

And to the second group, I have this to say: what's wrong with you?! Don't you like presents?!

Sheesh.

Collapse

I should have settled in to write last night after the kids were in bed, but I was just too ridiculously exhausted.

And by "ridiculously exhausted" I mean that it was sort of ridiculous that I was exhausted, because I'd slept in Sunday morning and then not done much of anything all day except for help Penny make cupcake buttons with her Easy Bake Oven and then fail to make meatloaf in time for dinner.

And yet, by the time I got out of the shower, the idea of even putting on my pajamas was tiring, so I didn't write. I sat on the couch (yes, I did manage to put on the pajamas, wiseass) and played Pocket Frogs and sort of half-watched the Grammys.

It was a good weekend, though. We hung out with friends and ate delicious food and went shopping and relaxed. The Keurig that Braz and Adin gave me when they got a nice new one got a clogged water line, so I had to spend a couple of days drinking instant, but then Braz showed me how to clear it out, so that crisis was averted.

It snowed Saturday afternoon/evening while we were at Braz and Adin's -- the first (and quite probably the only) snow of the season. The kids, predictably, lost their minds with excitement and insisted on going outside while it was still falling. I lamented having not brought my camera with me, but of course Braz had his, so all was not lost.

Penny had a "Valentine's Party" on Sunday that she invited everyone to about an hour and a half before she planned for it to start, and much to my surprise, three of her four invited guests actually showed up. (Though that's partly because I told her she couldn't invite guests who lived more than ten minutes away, so she stuck to our next-door neighbor, a couple of friends who live nearby, and the Hegemony.) It wasn't so much a party as a largish play-date, though. Ripley got a little offended (I believe) that Penny was spending more time with her school friend and called the party "boring", and then Ray (I think) got overwhelmed by all the girls and left early with the same excuse. I don't know if Penny learned a lesson about advance planning (or at least advance inviting), but she seemed to have a good time.

On second thought, maybe I do know why I was so tired Sunday evening!

Jury's Out

Just as I was pulling into a parking space at work this morning, the man in the office down the hall came out of the building. I got out of the car as he pulled level with me, and he said, "There's no coffee in the building. I'm going over to Starbuck's -- want anything?"

I do not function at work without my morning coffee, so I hopped back in the car and followed the guy over to the nearby Starbuck's, where I discovered that sometime in the last few months (I don't go to Starbuck's often) they've completely remodeled, and also that they've introduced a new, mild blonde roast, which matches most other companies' medium roast and completely unhinges my complaint that Starbuck's coffee always tastes burnt (for no purpose, even, as a quick search will confirm that a longer, darker roast does not increase the amount of caffeine the bean releases).

I considered caving to the temptation of the pastry display, but the longer I stood in front of it waiting for my turn to pay, the less appetizing they looked, so in the end, I just got the cup of coffee. So I guess that's a win.

I did cave to the temptation of the Free App of the Week (which is something else that I didn't really know about, wherein you can snag a code each week to get a free app from the iTunes store) because the app this week happens to be Bejeweled, which is a great game that's easy enough for the kids to play. Which, combined with this blonde roast (which I'm sipping as I type this and is actually quite yummy) may result in  making a weekly Starbuck's run just to check out the week's offering.

So I'm not entirely certain if this counts as a good start to the day or a worrisome one. Whichever, I expect it'll be interesting.

Merry Christmas

I finished cleaning up the kitchen after dinner last night, and went to sit on the couch relax with a little Pocket Frogs. Alex was finishing up the last ten minutes or so of Sesame Street, Matt was surfing his RSS feeds and/or playing Kingdom Rush, and Penny was playing upstairs.

Suddenly, she came down to lean over to railing. "Mom! Mom! Can you hear it?"

My allergies have been acting up and the TV is running, so no, I can't hear much of anything. "What is it, sweetie?"

"Can't you hear? My music!"

"Oh, are you listening to your CD player?"

She nodded excitedly, eyes bright.

"That's awesome, hon. What are you listening to?"

She says the name like she's name-dropping at the door of the most exclusive club in New York, casual, and yet with an undertone of Yeah, check me out! "We Own the Night."

"Is that your Selena Gomez CD?"

"Yeah." So, so casual and cool.

"Awesome, sweetie. Glad you're enjoying your music."

She disappears back upstairs. Alex's show ends and we turn off the TV, and then I can hear it, the music pulsing down the stairs. And more than that, I could hear her belting out the chorus in true Rock Band style.

A minute later, she's back, looking even more excited. "Mom!!"

"What, honey?"

She holds up her Kids Rock CD. "I love these songs! These are my favorites!" Well, that's why Matt and I Santa got it for her.

"Great! I'm so glad you like them!"

I went upstairs a few minutes later to peek in on her and found her sitting on the bed, reading through the lyric book from the Selena Gomez CD, the player cranked up to about eight. Alex, who'd accompanied me up the stairs, said, "It's too loud! I'm going back downstairs!" I'm not sure Penny even noticed his presence.

Sometimes, it takes her a little while to warm up to things. But when she does, she goes all out.

Kid Stories

Another Alex anecdote:

"Daddy, I'm locking my car door so no one can get in."

"Okay, but we're moving, so I think we're pretty safe."

"Ninjas are sneaky."

He's right, you know. You can't start teaching your kids too early about the dangers of ninjas.

And lest you think that was merely one of those moments when Alex did a conversational 360 (as he is, admittedly, wont to do), this morning on the way to daycare he said, "Mom, I'm locking my door so no ninjas can get in."

***

Report cards came out last week, and Penny got straight As for the second quarter! Matt and I are so proud of her, we could just bust.

On top of that, her class had a writing exercise in which they had to write about traveling with their favorite of the four explorers (Columbus, de Leon, Cartier, and Newport) they're just finishing up a unit on. Penny was fascinated to learn that Christopher Newport had begun his career as a privateer, so she wrote a story about pirating about with him that was so good, she was asked to read it aloud to one of the other third grade classes. (As far as we know, none of the other students had this honor.) And best still, the other class received her story very well. According to Penny, the "went wild" for it, clapping and cheering for her.

You can darned well believe that I'll share it as soon as it makes its way home.

Weekender

Holy smokes, am I ready for this weekend.

I don't even really know why, because this week hasn't been particularly difficult. But there it is. I want to sleep in and not do much of anything for a couple of days. Catch up on my reading, perhaps. Matt's monthly D&D game is Saturday night, so maybe I'll get in a little writing.

I hit the store yesterday to get a new lamp for my office at work. While I was there, I got some stuff for the kids for Valentine's Day. Probably more than I should have, but not as much as I wanted to get. I love buying stuff for the kids. Though it is still true that Penny is worlds easier to shop for than Alex. I have a very solid grasp of what she's into right now. Him, not so much.

...That's about all I've got. What about you guys? What're you doing this weekend? Talk amongst yourselves.

Hairy

I completely forgot to mention the new hair!

Saturday morning, I packed up the kids and took them to the hair salon where they were shockingly well-behaved (with the aid of a couple of the stylists and some very nice random guy with two kids of his own who helped redirect Alex a couple of times while I was in the chair). They both got haircuts and treats.

And I got new hair. New cut, new color.

I haven't tried coloring my hair... pretty much ever. I've had highlights done, but they were so subtle it was barely noticeable. This is all-over color. Dark auburn. Like mahogany. It looks like dark brown until you get it under bright light, and then you can see the red -- which is just perfect, really.

Alex was highly amused by the process. Or at least, he was highly amused by the sight of me sitting there with dye on my eyebrows (yes, I did the eyebrows along with). "Mommy!" he squealed, several times, "your eyebrows are red!"

And then I got it cut. Short. Too short to put in a ponytail any more, but long enough to cover my ears. I haven't had hair this short since the 8th or 9th grade -- and back then, my stylist refused to acknowledge my cowlick, so it looked... lopsided. This cut accepts the cowlick's tendencies and works with them. And, much to my surprise, it looked good even after I'd washed out the careful blowdrying and styling product. I do have to be careful to shape it a bit while it's wet and not touch it while it dries, or I end up with 70's wings over my ears. But I've already played with it a bit, and I can make it sleek or shaggy or even out-and-out wild if I'm willing to put a little gel in it.


People keep asking me, "What prompted the change?" and I keep having to answer, "It was just time." Or else they say, "Do you like it?" which makes me wonder if they don't. But I don't much care if they don't, because, well... I do.