Stinker

Yesterday I lost Emily. She was RIGHT THERE and then she was gone. I wasn't too concerned at first because the house is pretty Emily proof but still, I felt I should find her. So I started checking all the rooms, calling her name. After about 5 minutes I was rather concerned but knew she hadn't gone outside. I finally came back to the kitchen where she disappeared from and opened the pantry. Yep, there she was. She pulled the door shut on herself, enjoyed the dark and decided to ignore me calling for her. Heeelarious. I just couldn't believe she would sit in the dark like that since her sisters won't even let her sleep in the dark.

Haircut Dramas

It's been a long summer of shaggy, bleached out hair for Patrick. He used to agree to haircuts and would sit perfectly still, refusing to make chatty banter with the stylist, no matter how hard she tried, until it was candy time. Well, this summer he dug his heels in and refused to even discuss the subject. I let it slide until now as we are headed on a trip to see lots of family and they may want photos, so somehow I had to win. I thought about getting a couple older boys that Patrick worships to either come with us or at least talk him into it by showing him their own short hair.

This is when I learned that one of those boys used to get his hair cut using the method where his dad would sit on him and shave it off. So I shared that story with Patrick and he barked out in alarm, "what dad do that?!". He was very concerned that I was talking about his own dad, whom was due to come home any minute, possibly with a razor? So when Sean got home, all prepared for a fight, he told Patrick that he could pick out a prize from Target if he got his hair cut. Sean, confused by how quickly Patrick agreed to this, then emphasized that no haircut meant no prize and the prize would come after the haircut. Oh yes, Patrick then declared that yes, he was getting a haircut! And quickly, before someone sat on him!

He brought home the hammer of Thor and everyone is happy. Except the girls who have been thumped with it. They got their own hair cuts today, using up my own hair appointment that I made 8 weeks ago, when I didn't realize no sitters would be available this week.

Oh wait, the real highlights

All the kids were obsessed with Angela and Joe's dog, Bodi. It was rather ridiculous and I do hope Bodi has recovered from all the smothering. Megan also got to go on the Alpine Slide and the roller coaster thing. I made her wait until Angela and Joe came to do that though because I didn't want her heading up the mountain alone (no safety bars on those chair lifts, WTH?) and I certainly couldn't go with 3 other kids to deal with. Yes, there are challenges to the 1:4 ratio. When I was checking in and filling out the paperwork for the condo the desk people had to confirm that I was the only adult several times. Yes, I am just that stupid. But 47 degrees in the morning gave me a little more patience with the children...

Ah, the gem mining

Far and away the highlight of the trip for Anna. And now we have a bag of "gems" to add to their "rock" (mostly pieces of concrete) collection from school playgrounds. The girls spent a lot of time washing them when we got back to the condo so at least it kept them busy.

Making me nervous

This ranked up there with the "gem mining" that they did 7 times. I didn't let them do this the first day but apparently the altitude sickness wore me down and they had a great time on the second day. Probably safer than me taking Patrick on the big chair lift up to the top of the mountain, which he begged and whined to do for hours before I gave in. The whole time he kept telling me that I was hurting him because I was holding him too tightly. As a certified non-skier I am not exactly comfortable being up so high without anything besides a safety bar that does not keep a small boy strapped down. I preferred the gondola with doors that shut and windows that don't open.

Breckenridge Photos

Angela and Joe remembered their camera, so in addition to doing all the cooking (and clean up!) they also took all the photos. If it sounds like I am bragging about how awesome my friends are, you are paying attention. Love you guys!

Come on snow!

Patrick wanted to play snow today. He started out with some lovely pink gloves and then Megan helped him into his snowsuit, you know, the one he refused to wear when it did snow. I think reading Christmas themed books is not helping with the heat wave.

Back to the heat

Some highlights from the LONG drive back... Patrick asking the same questions over and over and over. Sometimes we couldn't figure out what he was saying which just made him repeat it exactly the same way another 47 times. I wish I was exaggerating. He got louder and louder and would scream and cry. Then other times I would understand the question but could not find an answer that he wanted so he would ask it again. And again another 47 times. Please, can someone tell me the answer to "where did the airplane go?". I would sure like to know. After a couple hours he started telling me to "go home". Yep, on our way, just another 7.5 hours until I could prove that we were indeed going home. He did finally sleep for a couple hours, even through the longest gas break ever. I have never met a gas pump that was so slow or so expensive, but I had no choice but to stop because who knows when the next gas station will be found in rural Kansas. We did get some awesome mileage on the way home at least. I think I just coasted for the first two hours as we descended the mountain.

Some other take away points from the trip.... it would be way more fun with older kids. I did save money by never shopping. It was still hot in the sun. Bring friends who like to cook for you. Don't drink wine your first night in the high altitude. I'm sure there is more but I'm too tired. After a brief break from the heat Sunday night and Monday morning we are back to it and only leaving the house when we have to. I did not need to see the article about how a hot fall is expected...

Worth the drive?

If not for my private chefs and babysitters, Angela and Joe, this may not have been worth the drive. It is certainly cooler here, 81 this afternoon, weather.com informs me that we are missing out on 106 degrees back in Kansas. At that temperature it doesn't really matter though, you just hide in the basement which I assume Sean is doing. He did run a race on post this morning and won his age division, although Bridget would point out that she would have schooled him while continuing on for another 5 miles. Anyway, in the sun it still feels pretty warm here and when you factor in the altitude sickness the kids are even crabbier than they are in 106 degree temps.

I debated staying another day but we have spent enough at the Breckenridge Fun Park, which has Disney style prices, and the kids aren't super awesome at checking out the shops and restaurants downtown here, so we are kind of out of stuff to do. They are happy to sit around watching movies but we can do that at home without me worrying about how long Patrick can go without eating or drinking before we need to swing by the hospital for an IV. Some sass is back so he may be recovering, yet another reason to get home. Let Sean absorb some of the sass. We will also be bringing back a pile of "gems" from the "gem mining" and I won't reveal how much we spent on that but at the end Anna was using her own tooth fairy money to pay for that.

Megan is currently writing in the journal that the condo owners left for renters to leave comments. I will have to do some editing as she just came down to see what the title of some pirated DVD is. She is in shock that such a thing exists and asked if we could call security to report it. How would that call go? Umm, there is an illegal copy of a DVD here, someone needs a $250,000 fine according to the warning at the beginning? This one is terrible though, clearly it was someone videotaping it in a movie theatre. I can't figure out the demographic who wants such a product but it certainly isn't Megan the rule follower.

Hmm, altitude sickness

I never dreamed that Patrick could be even whinier and bossier than he usually is. He is truly ruining this vacation for us, it's ridiculous. So much to do here and it's just so painful trying to do any of it. I'm pretty sure he must have the altitude sickness like me but at least I will drink water. He is refusing to eat or drink much which is making it worse. My only hope is that he turns on the charm for Angela and Joe when they get here. The girls are mad that I brought him and Sean was half expecting him to be sitting on the couch watching TV when he got home last night. I wish.

Bring on the hate, it is chilly here!

Don't be too jealous though, I did have to bring the children with me and the drive somehow ended up being 9 hours by the time we made it through construction, Denver traffic, and a few stops. The kids were on typical behavior and thus I still have a headache. We are at a condo in Breckenridge that I'm sure is much more expensive during ski season. We will explore for a couple days and then repeat the drive back. I would post photos but I forgot my camera in my haste to get the heck out of the heat.

I did remember to bring the wine in the car though which was brilliant if I do say so myself. We had no desire to head back out after we got settled in last night, other than to run around the parking lot. I paid someone a lot of money for some restaurant delivery and the kids had popcorn, everyone happy. But we need to head out this morning and get them a real meal. Patrick kept me up all night with coughing and kicking and crying, so I need to find serious caffeine. Sweet Emily is still sleeping though. Time to put on jeans and sweatshirts and pretend it is fall! After getting some fall clothes in the mail this is a happy day for me. Sorry to Sean who is home working and sleeping and hopefully enjoying a little break...

Oh and best of all, Angela and Joe arrive later today with their big plans to cook fabulous food. It's good to be spontaneous, just a little harder these days but I'm trying. Hope some others join me next time!

Invasions

Cicadas are bad enough but I just got caught in a caterpillar shower. I was watering my wilting hydrangeas when a neighbor started up his lawn mower, apparently freaking out the caterpillars in the tree above me because then they all dropped at once. I may need therapy to get over this. All I know is that the other hydrangea is not getting watered today, I am done. The deer just eats my plants anyway but since he is limping I feel bad for him and let him chow down.

The other invasion involves taking the girls with me to a breakfast meeting. I gave in and agreed that it is too hot for golf. I know, male golfers everywhere gasp in horror. How could it ever be too hot for golf?! Girl children disagree and thus get to invade my adult conversation time. I told them they have to entertain the little ones. I feel like this may go as well as the caterpillar shower.

The heat wins

I give up. Too many days over 100 degrees and no end in sight. We have been inside so much that I have done things like seal my granite and organize the pantry. Desperate times, people. So I am packing up the kids and heading to the mountains. I'll book a place today, appears to be tons of stuff available so I'm not fretting. My awesomely spontaneous friends Angela and Joe will come meet us for part of our trip, cannot wait to see them. Sean is shocked but appears to be looking forward to some quiet time in the house. He has a number of moonlighting shifts so it will be nice for him to have downtime in between those. Anyone from Manhattan who wants to caravan, let me know! Thursday to Sunday, it's going to be a trip...

Summer Rage

No, not 'roid rage, as you'll notice only one of my arms is freakishly strong from holding Emily, not both. This may be heat rage and I'm not the only one feeling it. This just furthers the theory that there is so much fighting in the Middle East and Central America because it's so damn hot. Just imagine this heat wave without a/c and a pool and a margarita machine. And now think about Canada and their lack of heat waves. Does Canada even have a military? I know they have hockey players and border guards but I don't see them getting involved in uprisings or riots or gun stock piling (not counting hunting rifles of course). I mean, these people don't even get angry when they have to wait a really long time for medical care or someone gives them ham and says it's bacon. Having grown up so close to Canada I must have picked up some laid back vibes because I have yet to unleash the rage on anyone. But I do have a list of targets in case I change my mind:

1. The electric company who keeps shutting us down at 3am until 7am. Gets a little toasty without the a/c and fan during a heat wave. If they ever shut us down from 3pm to 7pm, then they will most certainly feel my rage. At night I am too tired to do more than wait for the old people to call the electric company and complain. Would take far too much energy to find my cell phone and light my way to the phone book to figure that one out.

2. Cox Cable, who also keeps shutting down our phone and internet for hours at a time, usually early morning. I kept thinking that they were doing some maintenance and figured no one would notice at 3am but they were WRONG. I couldn't sleep the other night and got up at 3am, figured I could check out the Nordstroms pre-season sale that had started at 2am (does someone need to do an intervention here?) before stuff sold out and I started shopping... only to have it shut down for a few hours. Then I was so mad I couldn't go back to sleep. Oh, this also causes problems for radiologists who work in the middle of the night, which is the opposite of my shopping and perhaps more important. I did eventually get some great deals though which I feel is important! Yes, in the middle of a heat wave I am thinking boots and fall jackets...

3. The children, who have far too much energy to be trapped inside by the heat and as such are annoying (I removed a more colorful phrase here). They are bored with the club pool (but not by the food that they beg for endlessly) so we tried the local city pool this weekend. WOW. Yeah, we may be quitting the club. The pool is so much better that the lack of summer beer is not even a factor anymore. I will keep checking to see how busy the city pool is at various times of the day and week before ditching the club though. While I enjoy the challenge of trying to use up our food quota during the non-pool months, I don't enjoy paying the bill for the non-pool months... We golf elsewhere anyway. Oh but the children are driving me nuts with their fighting and whining, especially during Emily's nap time. She just asked me for some tea, I guess she wants to power through today without a nap, hmm.

4. That new restaurant, Ingredient, who keeps screwing up my take-out orders. With 4 whiners in tow I don't have time to check it all before I flee out of there, so then I get home and am vastly disappointed but too tired and hot to go back and get it fixed. Instead I just eat some of Sean's meat loaded pizza which is so good that I don't even mind the pepperoni. After almost 16 years together we may finally agree on a kind of pizza... good thing we stuck it out after that 2nd date where we figured that one out.

Now as for those who can't control their rage, we have Patrick. He keeps making up new rules for everyone to follow and when we invariably screw up, we have to back up and start over until we get it right. There is a whole routine with the order we can get buckled in the car and then there is the door opening routine. When it is 105 degrees out I find that waiting for the prince to open the door so I can get into the sweet air conditioned house is a bit annoying. Oh the rage that follows when I disobey. Patrick even calls me "naughty" now when I don't let him win. I also get scolded for "you not listening to me!". Yesterday I made him angry because I did not hear him tell me that breakfast was delicious. Perhaps I was just in shock that I made something that a child thought was delicious? The palates around here have been picky lately, to say the least. So I pretty much have stopped cooking, which is why I keep getting take-out for the adults.

Anyway, it appears that Cox has figured out the problem (bad connection made worse by the extreme heat) so now I should be able to blog and vent on a regular basis (and keep my rage under control). In the meantime I may experiment with some summer beer recipes during nap time when we can't leave the house anyway...

No Christmas in July

The girls found the American Girl Doll crack catalog in the recycling yesterday and suddenly they are all into their dolls again. Specifically they are very interested in buying new ones and new accessories. They read the list of everything they want to me today and I tuned it out after two minutes. It went on much longer and I'm sure totaled somewhere in the 4 digit category. I calmly explained that I don't spend that much on clothing for actual living breathing children, so that list probably wasn't going to be necessary. So then they broke it down into what they want for their birthdays (in November and January) and what they want for Christmas. They at least realize Santa is far more generous than their parents. I was also advised that I could pass their lists on to the extended family members, for anyone who wants to get a jump on their holiday shopping.

I am not totally heartless though. I did try to be spontaneous and find someone to go to KC with this weekend so the girls could go in the store and spend their own pile of coins, but alas it won't work out. It also happens to be the pre-season sale at Nordstoms, but that is just a coincidence. I don't know where the girls get their shopping gene from...

Watermelon Boy

Patrick's latest obsession is watermelon. I try to limit him somewhat as it makes a huge mess but at least it is healthier than his other favorite foods... hot dogs, french fries, cheeseburgers, cookies, candy, ice cream, chips, popcorn, brownies, and now since he recently tried it, Sprite. Perhaps his behavior issues are food related? Or maybe he is hungry since I try to limit those foods and he doesn't like the stuff I do offer him. Last night he snuck in our room to sleep on our floor at 2am. He at least knows I won't allow him in the bed. Frankly, I barely let Sean in the bed in the summer, talk about a furnace (no offense, hon), so there is certainly no room for furnace junior. Anyway, I woke up this morning to Patrick sprawled out on a bunch of pillows with a box of crackers next to him. Guess he travels with a snack. At least it wasn't watermelon!

Kansas Steak

This is a custom cut steak from some friends who bought a cow from their nephew at the fair last year. Apparently it wouldn't fit on their grill? I believe this is actually 1/16th of the cow. Sean ate every last bite. Makes me sick just joking about it. The two of us together ate like 10% of that.

You want to be my friend!

No, that's not a question, it's a statement. I am so much fun, so exciting, of course you want to hang with me and be my friend. What activities did you miss today, are you wondering? Let me tell you, today was dry out the paint can day. Yep, time to gather up all the paint cans that date back to the beginning of this house, realize that I will never use them, and as such I need to throw them out. Before I can do that I have to let them sit open for weeks, yes WEEKS, people. Four children live here, have you picked up on that? God help me if they find this open paint can amusement park. It is currently located in the back of our garage which is below Sean's office. Mmm, 30 cans of paint fumes, headed his way. He told his techs to call me if he doesn't keep up his usual rate of submitting studies tonight. (FYI you can only do this with latex paint, in case you also wanted to have a paint can drying out party).

Different personalities

Here are the girls doing the 3 legged race at MCC on 4th of July. When Anna was done she hugged her new best friend. Megan and her partner were so shy that we had to tell them to link arms so they wouldn't fall over.

Golf Ball Hunt

Forget doing an Easter egg hunt at the club, next year they need to let the kids loose on the driving range and have them pick up balls. Here is Patrick with his shirt full of them. He must have given up at some point when walking back up the hill because they didn't make it into my car at least.

Now there's a real group shot

Had to squeeze in our old neighbor too. She sure wishes she had a little brother!

Tyrants on break

Hasn't been that long since these two were babies and now they are three year old tyrants, running the show around these parts. They look so innocent here. Do not be deceived.

Good party, bad mothers

Thanks to Joe and his team of helpers for a great night of fireworks. Sean's contract says he cannot participate so he hangs in the back with the babies. I should get the rest of the babies to bed... another big night tomorrow. Patrick would like them every night, should we move to Disney?

Happy Third

Just a little pre 4th of July fireworks, getting Emily used to them.

While you were golfing

I think Sean needs to know all about the exciting times he has missed out on while golfing today. This was of course presented as only being gone part of the day, unlike when he works and is gone all day. Except then there was talk of lunch afterwards (which is fine only because bread is running low here) so now we're actually just getting closer to it being like a good day at work when he can be home by early afternoon. But sweatier, which means I can postpone my daily laundry loads by a few hours. Since I do laundry so often I have taken to just pulling what we need out of the dryer each day, which everyone loves because there is none of that pesky folding or putting away of clean clothes. Of course I am still ironing every night. Umm, do we have an iron?

Anyway, to kick off July I decided that since Patrick pees on the floor every time I put him in time-out that it might be time for me to do more than spray bleach his hardwood floor, so I steam cleaned it and patted myself on the back for never getting around to buying him a rug for his room. And then I took a break. It is my summer vacation after all. And now I will neglect the children for some obsessive book reading. Thank you TV. And thank you a/c for making it much nicer at home than on the golf course...