Someone Has a Sense of Humor (and It's Not Me)

It's snowing. I hope that the powers that be realize that March 31 is the official cut-off date for winter-like weather. Tomorrow I had damn well better wake up to sunshine, balmy breezes, and greening grass. This is really getting ridiculous.

Spring Approaches

Behold the weensy little tips of daffodils pushing out of the soil:

This makes me ridiculously happy. The air was mild and spring-like yesterday, despite the foot of snow still blanketing our entire yard. And, yes, in Maine 46 degrees qualfies as "mild" and "spring-like." After a winter like we've just been through, you take what you can get. Lately I've taken to visiting garden centers just to smell the dirt and fertilizer, not unlike a crack addict seeking a fix. It's not something I'm necessarily proud of, but it keeps me sane. Relatively.

While I was sniffing dirt and prodding daffodil tips, Bug whipped out her jump rope and began galloping up and down the recently de-iced driveway.

She was more than happy to jump in place for me while I snapped pictures.

You may not know this about Bug, but she's a bit of a hamhock when she knows that people are taking pictures of her.

Really, this kid's a total goof.

In fact, you might say that she's a bit of a drama queen. I would just like to go on record as saying that I have NO IDEA where she would have gotten that trait from.



Eventually, though, she got tired of mugging for the camera and went back to her galloping. It's good to be a kid when Spring is coming. She knows that soon we'll be getting out the bikes, scooters, and balls. I know she knows that because she asks me everyday when we can get those out, and after thinking about slogging through the snow to the back shed, I just answer vaguely, "Uh, soon, honey."

Of course, today we're getting four inches of snow. BUT WE'RE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THAT, ARE WE??

Global Warming My Ass

Dear Mother Nature,

Yesterday, as you well know, was Easter. Observe:

When I look out the window Easter morning, I expect to see this:

Or this:

Or, hey, even one of these is fine.

THIS is not:

Please correct this matter before next Easter.

Regards,

Jenn

Sugar-Fueled & Dance Happy

Along with the standard basket o' sugar, the Easter Bunny also brought the Bear and Bug "Dance Dance Revolution" for their Wii. It's a video game where you dance along with the screen commands on a mat with sensors in it. After each song, you are graded on your dance accuracy. So, for SIX HOURS yesterday, the girls danced, and danced, and danced.

Of course, they paused occasionally to refuel on these...

some of these...

oooh, and a whole lotta this...

Then they'd go right back to dancing. As Daddy Shortbread pointed out, it's hard to tell them they've had enough video game time for the day when they're working up a sweat.

And, yes, Daddy Shortbread and I tried it too. If you think I'm posting pictures of that, then you just don't know me very well.

Happy Easter.

Dat Wascally Wabbit!

Bug and Bear awoke this morning (at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m.) to discover that the living room and dining room were festooned with yarn. The plate where Bug had left carrots for the Bunny was empty. The level of water in the cats' dish was suspiciously low.

A single golden egg lay at the entrance to the living room with a cryptic note inside reading, "Follow the string." Starting with the end of the yarn closed into the egg, they unravelled their way around chairs, under tables, behind the TV, and finally to the cupboard where their Easter baskets were hidden.

Ah, chocolate, jelly beans, and marshmallow peeps!

Later, when Bug went down to the basement to let the cats out, she reported that "It definitely smells rabbity down there." We can only assume that he went down to visit the cats after leaving the girls' baskets.

(sorry no photos - Blogger won't let me add any for some reason...I'll try again later).

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!!

Nurse Mittens is ON THE JOB

Mittens is an interesting cat. We rescued/adopted her from an iffy home (think 3 pitbulls, enormous plastic light-up Virgin Mary in the front yard, and an incredibly beat-up pool table in lieu of living room furniture). She was scrawny, dusty, and ear-mitey when we got her. Out of sheer gratitude (we guess), she has pledged to stay with us in sickness and in health. But especially sickness. This past week Bear, Bug, and Daddy Shortbread were felled by a nasty flu. Mittens was most attentive. To wit:


Look what a devoted companion she is to my sick baby. She only leaves to eat.




At one point yesterday, Daddy Shortbread opened bleary eyes to note that he felt like a piece of cat furniture:

Sometimes she gets concerned. Hey. You still alive?



But usually she's content to just hang out on the patient's lap, providing a nice little mammalian heating pad service.

Not always. I think she's checking with her paw to make sure he's still breathing here.

Sweet Jesus, woman. Can't you see that I'm working??

Care to Guess Who Was a Total Dork at the Photo Shoot?

Aww...look at the cute hair. She's all ready for dance class. Kind of a tense smile, though.

Now, the Bug's introspective look:

Actually, Buggie-Boo can pose for a frighteningly long time. There's a reason her chair faces away from the window in the dining room. Otherwise she spends the whole dinner checking herself out and trying out different expressions.

OK, this is not starting out well with the Bear...

I think we're losing her, folks.

...and she's gone!

Whew.

Gum surgery over.

Thank you, Valium.

Big City Flower Show or I Paid $26 Admission for This?!

First off, the Big City Flower Show which I have looked forward to for weeks was an unequivocal dud. It could more accurately be called the Big City Lumpy Pottery and Hippie Craft Show. Far from the lush masses of flowers I'd been describing to my girls, there were only a few scraggly, frightened-looking bouquets for (exorbitant) sale at a few of the vendors. Had we been in the market for homemade dog biscuits, bad watercolors of flowers, or a gazebo we would have been in luck. We were not.

The show was housed in an industrial building down on the wharf. This pseudo-airplane hangaresque building's main qualities were:
-No parking
-Very dim lighting
-Musty smell
-Lack of enough bathrooms

Then The Bug started to feel sick. We cut our losses and fled.

Instead of the fantastic photos of flowers I had planned to attach to this post, I offer the following conversation from lunch.

Me: Bear, I'm going to call you "Crash" from now on. (In reference to last night when she broke a whole stack of dishes while unloading the dishwasher).

The Bear: Hey!

Daddy Shortbread: Yeah, that's perfect!

The Bug: Or...how about "Idiot"?

Artin'

When The Bear was a toddler, that's what she called any kind of craft-related activity. Artin'.

We've actually gotten so much snowpack this winter that the kids have been stuck indoors a lot of the time. It's hard to run and play when the snow is up to your thigh, as The Bug discovered when she tried and got a boot sucked off by the snow. There's nothing like ice-cold and slushy socks to make you think, "'Enough of this cold crap. Let's go inside and do some ARTIN'."

There's also nothing like the words, "Mom, can we paint?" to strike fear in the heart of any mother.

Still...

Notice Daddy Shortbread had to get in on the artin', too. Yeah, I know the picture is sideways. I'm new at this, remember? Give me a break.

The Bear got in on the action, too. She wanted her painting to be more of a "goth-y silhouette-y effect." Remember, she's almost a teenager. She's practicing being moody.

The Bug, on the other hand, is ALL ABOUT the bright colors. If I had gotten out the glitter (I didn't. I'm not stupid.), I'm sure she would have added that to her painting.


Hope you enjoyed our Day o' Art. Leave a comment, and I'll try to get a new post up in a couple of days.

Upcoming events for this week: Big City Flower Show! And...Gum Surgery! Hopefully with lots of muscle relaxants!