He's a Keeper

I looked at the kids' chalk board easel and saw that M had drawn this:

Now you can all imagine M and me on our cruise while we're away!

We're Outta Here!

In honor of our 10 year anniversary that we had in August, we're leaving on Sunday for a cruise. I am INSANELY excited.

Bragging begins here: 7 nights to the Caribbean. Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica via Royal Caribbean. Leaving out of Galveston. Balcony room!

We are very fortunate to have my mom living near by, so she will be watching our kids. My mom is a life saver. M and I REALLY need this break.

So here's to 7 days with M!  No kids.  No house cleaning. No cooking dinner.  No homework help.  No getting kids ready for bed.  No reminding kids what they need to be doing every 15 seconds. No church responsibilities.

I swear we could be going to a shack as long as these conditions are met, so the cruise/Caribbean part is just icing on the cake. Very delicious icing.

Gravy!

On Monday nights we have a family night. Sometimes we play pictionary together as a family.  Each of us takes a turn drawing a picture while everyone else tries to guess what we're drawing.

Except when it's Kate turn to draw, she doesn't really draw anything.  She just scribbles all over and keeps going while we guess random things.  When she finally hears something called out that strikes her fancy, she will declare, "YES!" and then her scribbles retroactively become that thing.

Last night she was scribbling big arcs of brown interspersed with bits of pink and blue and white. We all called out lots of things and we weren't having much luck.  Finally M called out, "Gravy!" and apparently Kate liked the sound of that one.

I'm not sure I like the idea of gravy that has pink and blue bits in it...

Scott is Going to Lose My Mind

Yesterday when I went to pick up Scott from school, he didn't have his backpack. He went off to look for it while I wrestled the jogging stroller. First he went and checked the cafeteria where they line up at the end of school. He emerged still not having found it, so he checked the classroom. No luck. He also checked the lost and found. Nothing.

I decided to check for myself. I walked into the cafeteria and immediately saw his backpack, all by itself smack dab in the middle of the floor.

I know the phrase is a bit cliché, but Scott really would forget his head if it wasn't attached.

This reminds me of how things went after school three days ago. It was cold enough that the kids wore coats, gloves, and hats. When I picked Scott up, I told him his backpack looked a little small. Was he sure his coat was in there? The brand new coat I had just bought and that this was his first time wearing? Yes, he assured me. When we went to put his coat on outside because he was cold, we found that his coat WAS NOT in fact in his backpack. So Scott ran back to the cafeteria to get it. When he returned and started putting his coat on, I saw one of his gloves dangling off the velcro on the front of the coat. Then we determined that his hat was ALSO not in his backpack. I asked him about it and he said, "I don't know. It was in my hand when I left the classroom, but when I got to the cafeteria, it wasn't there anymore."

So basically he forgot to keep his fist clenched around an object he was carrying. (Luckily it had already made it's way to the lost and found and we recovered the hat almost immediately. We are not usually this lucky with all of his stray water bottles and such.) I wish this was a more isolated incident, but it's not. I have had to drop his forgotten backpack off at school for him in the mornings more times than I can't count.

My advice to Scott? Don't do anything where anyone's life depends on you remembering something. You know, tricky stuff to remember like the fact that your muscles need to stay contracted to keep an object from falling to the ground.

And then when we finally got all of Scott's winter gear sorted out, Claire turned to me and announced that her hat was missing too.

*sigh*

Meet the Cat

My parents also sort of have a cat.  He doesn't have a name.  Well, unless you count, "Kitty, kitty, kitty..."

They got him through a rescue organization that helps feral cats.  The idea was to keep the rodent population down.

They actually got two kittens to start with and neither was truly feral.  They went through a long process to try to get the kittens to feel attached to the property and to stick around.  One of the two disappeared, but this little guy still comes around every evening looking for the little bit of food my mom gives him.  In return, he leaves dead rats on their porch occasionally.  So I guess mission accomplished.  (Of course, he also leaves lizards sometimes, which my parents would rather stayed alive. Guess you can't win 'em all. Hopefully the combined effect of the bad things he kills and the bad things he scares off with his smell is a net positive.)

The cat is funny.  It meows and meows and meows at you like he's begging for you to pay attention to him and come bring him food.  But if you walk in his general vicinity,  he switches to hissing without warning.

Fickle, fickle cat... I'm not much of a pet person in general, but I just REALLY don't get cats.  Thank goodness I'm allergic so I don't have to have that fight with my kids!