HOT

Life stinks here. We are at day 35 of over 100 degrees. And it's not 101. It's more like 108 or 109. When Kanga goes out at the end of the day to start her car, the temp usually reads between 118 and 133. I actually shrieked when I saw that one. We do not live in the Sahara Desert here. This is ridiculous.

Needless to say I can't remember the last time we played outside. I put the quad stroller on the back porch tonight because I can't remember the last time we used that either and I don't see it in our near future.

The playroom used to be our garage. It has its own AC unit back there, but the insulation is not as good as the rest of the house. It's having trouble keeping up. It's fine in the mornings most of the time but by the afternoon we don't want to be in there.

I think there's something to be said for lying on the tile floor and panting like a dog. I can see now why they do it.

I also think there's going to be a water day coming up very soon, even if I have to flood my kitchen and do it inside. The thought of going out right now gives me hives, even if sprinklers are involved.

Did I mention it's hot?

Snow and Books And Random Stuff

• May I just tell you how tired I am of snow and ice? I live in a southern state partially to avoid this entire season. Five snow days in two weeks is just too many. So I stayed open today. I'll be open tomorrow too even if the kids don't go back to public school. Some people didn't make it in anyway today- I just had Hercules, Bianca, and newbie tiny boy. I think he may be Mater. I've sort of been thinking of him as Mater since before he even started, but I had to meet him and see if it worked.
• We interviewed this week for a six month old and I think he will fit in SO well here. Hope we get to take care of him. :)
  
• Day 4 is favorite books. Whatever our Read It Once Again book is becomes their current favorite since we do read it every day. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Big Red Barn, and The Letters are Lost are frequent requests. They also love Small Pig by Arnold Lobel. I think that's mostly because I love it and want to read it a lot. It was one of my favorites when I was a kid and in fact I wrote Arnold Lobel a letter and he wrote me back with a HAND-DRAWN marker sketch of a pig and told me he was so happy I loved his work. Super cool. Anyway. Ten Apples Up On Top and anything by Sandra Boynton are big hits too.
  

Sick of Ice

Wow. No school for the past three days here. The whole neighborhood is pretty much one solid sheet of ice. There's not even any snow to play in- you step outside and fall flat on your tail, even in the grass if you're not careful.

My hubby hasn't been able to get to work either, so we've been hanging around here getting progressively more bored. The good news is that I'm farther along on the mess that is my taxes than I've ever been at this time of the year. :) And I DO have all your statements ready- remi,nd me to give them to you when I see you. Or you can call if you need the numbers right away.

As far as scheduling goes, I don't know how the roads are outside of my very small area. I made it to the grocery store today and it took about five times as long as usual to get home. I hear it's still not so good everywhere around here. But I am tired of things being on hold and ready for it to get back to normal, so we WILL be open Friday, tomorrow, if you are able to get out and want to bring your munchkin. In addition, I've decided not to take Good Friday off this year like I generally do. Since it turns out Duchess will be in school that day and Hubs has burned a few vacation days because of this week, we won't be going anywhere like we thought. So we'll be open April 22. Hope that helps as far as this goes- the weather is such a pain.

Mud Puddles *with video!*

It's been raining for so long here. On the days that it's not actually raining, it's still been really soggy and muddy in the yard. We haven't been outside in weeks. I decided today we were going out no matter what. So we got swimsuits on and I took the big kids out to turn themselves into mud balls. We had a great time! I took video also- it's at the bottom of the post.


I was so proud of Sebastian- he came out with us and actually stomped in the mud a bit and put his hands in it. He was still the cleanest one, but he did much better than I expected. Usually he really hates to be dirty and won't even try when we do messy stuff.

Duchess, on the other hand, has no such problem. She decided a mud beard would be good.

Simba and Scamp stayed inside with Kanga and Roo, and they were not happy about that. They had their faces mashed up to the glass most of the time. I just didn't feel like they were old enough to not get upset or else eat the mud.

Jumping in puddles brings great joy to everyone involved.

I got brave enough to squish my feet around a bit. It was really quite muddy. I felt like I was wearing thick mud socks afterwards and I had to get out the hose to spray us all off.

Ariel proudly showing off her muddy face.

O'Malley inspecting a puddle for worms.

I love stuff like this. Yes, it's messy and kind of a pain, but that's the beauty of having two adults here. I hosed them off one by one and sent them in to Kanga, who was ready with towels. We had a wonderful time.

Nature Walk

It's pretty windy out today, but warm in the sunshine, so we all went for a walk this morning. They all have their favorite things to look for. Simba loves the wind and makes faces at it and opens his mouth to feel it on his tongue. O'Malley is obsessed with rabbits and squirrels and most especially dogs barking. Sebastian likes to look for airplanes. Duchess wants to walk up a certain street and see if Rex the cat is outside. Snow White picks every dandelion she sees along the way. Ariel does all those things, and then usually throws in a little something every time that adds depth to the conversation.

She had gotten tired of running in front of the stroller and was walking with me and "helping" me push it, chattering nonstop. She noticed that the moon is visible today and so we talked about that for a little while. I'm really going to need to brush up on all my scientific facts to talk to these kids. They're asking some good questions these days! She wanted to know why it was there during the day. Then she noticed that it's a half moon right now and that freaked her right out.

"The moon! What happened? The moon! It break'd!"

Um, I was an English and history major. Skimmed through science. I told her the whole moon is always really there, but sometimes we can't see parts of it because it's in the shadow of the earth. I hope that's right, or at least close enough for a four year old. So then we talked about how the moon spins around the earth and the earth spins around the sun, but we can't feel it, and when you see the clouds moving, they're not- we are. But there aren't any clouds today and she wanted to know where they went. Beats me.

I need to rent a Magic School Bus video or something. Not for them- for ME. Duchess is always telling me things I didn't remember from science class that Ms. Frizzle teaches her.

The duct tape leaf belt is way more my speed. I think we'll do that on our next walk and avoid all this heavy discussion. :)

Summer Curriculum

I totally understand that it makes sense to have the theme for June as "Fun in the Sun". We have that and also a mini-unit on the water cycle coming up. However, our curriculum is based out of Michigan or Minnesota or one of those northern M states where they just don't really get the southern heat we have working here. I'm not having much fun in the sun right now- we were able to be outside less than half an hour this morning before they gasped and sweated and begged to come in.

And July? I'm afraid. It's "Going Camping". ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I can't even think about camping until about October.

Being on vacation last week, and also getting our June box late, we've only done three days of work so far, and it's already the 16th. I'm seriously thinking about working at our own pace, taking the rest of the month to do just the sun stuff, saving the water stuff for July, and saving the camping stuff until the fall. I'd love to actually try to do some kind of family camping thing, but OH PLEASE NOT NOW. I will fall down from heat stroke.

Sardines

We used to play a game called Sardines when I was a kid that was the reverse of Hide and Seek. One person would go hide, and then everybody else would look for them. If you found them, you hid with them. We'd move around and switch to places people had already looked, and by the end you'd have twelve people crammed into a teeny space, sweating, while one poor guy was wandering around the place all alone going "Hey guys? Where is everybody?" It was great for really big areas where you could spread out.

I was reminded of that today as we did our every-six-months required severe weather drill. I talked them through hearing the siren and everybody getting their drink and a blanket and we all marched into the laundry room, which is the only room in my house with no windows and no outside walls. There's seriously not a whole lot of room in there. But it was actually kind of fun. I took Owl Babies in there and we read it for the four hundredth time and after awhile they were telling me I should have brought some kleenex, and some snacks, and what about dinner? Could we just live in here forever? It's so much fun squashed in a three foot space!

At least hopefully they'll remember the next time I get inspected, when the guy asks if we do those drills. :) It's always bad to get a blank stare when he asks them about something I'm supposed to be doing, especially when we do it all the time!

Some Snow and Some Songs

I think it's going to be at least until tomorrow before it's 75 again and we get to play in the sandbox again like we did YESTERDAY. Because today it's snowing. WOO HOO crazy weather in this place.

I called all the kids to the window to come see the snow. Most everyone came running and started jockeying for position. Ariel started singing a little song:

"Oh, it's snowing!
The winterland is happy!
There's ice and snow and winter now
And oh we are so happy!"

Such a creative girl.

They all went back in the playroom and I kept making grilled cheese. I remember now why I never make it- they love it and want tons of it and it takes SO long on my griddle. Anyway, about ten minutes later Buzz comes in and freaks out.

HEY! Whoa! It's snowing!

I think he was excited about having the playroom to himself when everybody ran out so he didn't think to ask them what they were going to look at. :)

And now I finally have enough grilled cheese to appease the masses, so it's lunchtime. Stay warm.