Friday Fun

The kids watched an episode of a cartoon that introduced them to the concept of an April Fool's Joke. Since then, John has been copying the "joke" made by the fellow four-year-old on the TV show, in which the mother opened her cupboard to find a toy dinosaur in there. Woo-hoo scary! Get it? Note the green truck in my refrigerator. When I discover it there (over and over), John is hiding somewhere and starts vocalizing, "vroom vroom!" until he falls apart from peals of laughter. And then I fall apart laughing--at him, but don't tell John!

And now Mary has begun imitating him, so today I repeatedly found her beloved grey kitty cat cold but otherwise unharmed in my freezer.

Today one of the two local schools of Irish Dance gave a free performance to the homeschooling group at our parish. John and Mary get so excited to watch Irish dance on YouTube clips, so we thought they'd enjoy seeing it live and performed by other children. I thought it might be hard for me to manage the kids on such an outing at this stage of pregnancy (perhaps I am a big wimp--I certainly am just plain big), so Chris graciously took a couple hours off of work to come with us. After the performance, the dancers even taught the children some steps, as you can see above, with Daddy helping John and Mary follow along.

Mary's entire outfit and shoes: a consignment sale find! I just outfitted both kids for the whole summer at a big consignment sale--yippee!

Mary looks so nonchalant, but I don't have a photo of when she thought I had turned my back so she climbed to the top of the bleachers and was walking along, six feet above the hard floor, such that I had to run (some might say 'lumber') across the gymnasium to yank her down. She argued with me, "I not going to fall!" (which is probably true).

After the dance performance was the regular free play time for the homeschoolers, in which we can use all the physical education equipment that belongs to the parish school. The kids call these circular things with wheels 'scooters' and I don't recall that they existed when I was a schoolchild: they sure are fun! The kids played zooming on scooters, basketball, hockey, and lacrosse, organizing themselves for all the games.

John always enjoys putting on a "team shirt" (the red thing) at these events.

John leaping onto a scooter

What I make for meals these days is quite hit-and-miss depending on my fatigue. Sometimes I feel energetic, and sometimes an exhaustion overcomes me that rivals that first-trimester exhaustion at a cellular level. A new complication has been added since my blood pressure crept up even higher and my midwife forbid me to eat more restaurant food or processed frozen food because of the sodium content, yet those two crutches were how I was limping along and feeding my family. Last night was one of my big "misses" when I dumped the kids in front of the television, slept on the couch when I should have been cooking dinner, and--when Chris emerged from his office--I said something like, "I don't care if we have crackers for dinner." (End of story: heroic husband prepared dinner for us while I lay in bed upstairs.)

Tonight was better! I tried a new recipe of Roasted Vegetable Spinach Salad with a homemade vinaigrette (since today is a Friday, so no bacon dressing, which would have been fabulous). One nice aspect of the recipe is its flexibility: I roasted a good half dozen vegetables based on what we had in the house and what was in season, and I made a lot extra to use with meals in the days to come. Also I served it over a mix of lettuces and spinach instead of straight spinach, to suit our taste. I made some pasta and, since marinara sauce exacerbates my heartburn, I threw together a butter sauce that was better than the ordinary.

Tomorrow we have been invited to a party celebrating the feast of St. Joseph and I plan to depart my own newly resumed Pity Party (aka "I Want To Have This Baby NOW") to attend. I will not be attempting anything fabulous, but will instead have my understanding husband stop by a deli on the way over to pick up a potluck dish. Meanwhile, various ridiculous things (like watching "Franklin"--a cartoon about a turtle--with the kids) are making me weepy. Gotta love them hormones.