Thursday, May 20, 2010

Oh, The Cleverness of You


When they said they wanted to play Shark Boy and Lava Girl, they really meant it. I was amazed with the costume development on this one. Fins, sharks, color coordination, even some pink hair - nicely done guys. And I agree, the movie did need a Shark Boy and a Shark Girl. Lava Girl is even eating ice to cool herself down. A+!

The Alarm Clock Experiment

Today marked the second morning of the alarm clock experiment. The results were mixed, which causes a problem.

On the first morning, the girls woke at 6:45 a.m. (with Jay & I giggling in the hallway) to "It's The Best Day Ever" by Spongebob Squarepants. Amanda opened her eyes, sat up and smiled immediately. Elizabeth turned over, pulled the covers over her head and grumped "way too annoying." Amanda bounced to the music and said "I feel like this really is gonna be the best day ever!"

This was very odd considering Amanda is usually the morning grumper and Elizabeth is generally without a.m. complaints. Elizabeth is usually up, dressed and informing us about her day before Amanda can even muster a facial expression.

So, let's try this again.

On the second morning, the girls woke at 6:45 a.m. (Jay & I were already downstairs caffeinating) to "It's The Best Day Ever" by Spongebob Squarepants. Elizabeth was first downstairs and she was visibly irritated. She peered out from behind a wall of her own hair and spat "music in the morning? So annoying! I would rather have beeping!" But then it was quiet, and Amanda never came downstairs. For 30 minutes she sat in her bed, smiling, daydreaming, and bouncing to music.

So here we are. I'm not sure how it will turn out. I know that I've tapped into something very valuable with Amanda and I won't give it up. But the girls are already fighting. Fighting about beeping vs. music, fighting about the very existence of alarm clocks, the color of alarm clocks, even fighting about whether sharing a room was such a good idea in the first place. Ouch.

This has gone deeper than I had anticipated. This I know for sure: (1) I'm an idiot for stirring the pot so soon; (2) summer starts in 2 weeks rendering all alarm clock arguments moot; (3) I don't care what anyone says, my song choice was genius and payback is a witch with a capital B; and (3) Jay has to repaint that nightstand.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Elephants



We don't usually get this close to the elephants, so this was very exciting for Elizabeth. But it started to get a little creepy because after a while, what do you do when you run out of things to talk about? A little awkward. Allow me to reenact...


Elizabeth: Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Hi, elephant! Mom, look how close! Daddy, Daddy, look! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Hi, elephant. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. What are you doing? Eating? That's what you're eating? Gross. I love you elephant. I'm never this close, this is awesome!


2 minutes later:


Elizabeth: so... yeah, you're so cute. I don't have any food or anything. Mom, why is it still looking at me? I love you elephant. So...it's hot today isn't it? You gonna go get wet? There's some water over there. No? Okay, that's cool. You're so awesome elephant.


1 minute later:


Elizabeth: What? What? Oh man, I think that baby giraffe is calling my name. That sucks 'cause I'd love to stay here. Because I love elephants more than anything. But... you know, it's a baby giraffe and he was just born and everything so it might hurt his feelings if I ignore him. So... stay awesome, k? I'm gonna go now. You should go get wet! Oh, you're just gonna watch me walk away? Okay. Well, so, I'm just gonna... hey look - ants!


Elizabeth runs away yelling "Pachyderms rule!"*


*This isn't an exactly what happened, but it was awkward for Elizabeth and I do like to exaggerate.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Petz Cousins

A couple of weeks ago we spent some time at the beach with my cousin Rachel and her family. They were heading back to NH after a trip to Disneyworld, and stopped over for a solid 24 hour visit. Combined, we have 6 kids, so it was loud and fun and really just a blast to see these little cousins get to hang out and get to know each other again.

There are 6 first cousins on the Petz side, and we grew up taking picture after picture of all of us lined up, standing on stairs, or any other way the grown-ups told us to pose. Here are a couple of the original Petz Six:

Rehoboth Beach, summer 1990(?) (Clockwise from top left: Rachel, Dan, Nikki, Mike, Kristen, Wendy)

Kiawah Island, summer 2001(?) (Nikki, Rachel, Mike, Kristen, Dan, Wendy)


And now WE get to tell the next generation when, where and how to pose! So here they are: half of the Petz 2nd cousin 12:


Kiawah Island, May 2010 (Jamie, Jack, David, Amanda, Kendra, Elizabeth)


Kiawah Island, May 2010 (Amanda, Elizabeth, Jamie the Bandit, Kendra, David, Jack)




Where The Wild Things Are...

I do know where the wild things are; they're in the middle, of course!



Just a quick hello from Amanda. Cameo/attempted Fun Day sabotage by Elizabeth.

Additionally, I do realize that my last blog post was titled "Lost" and that it sat idle for many months. I wanted to confirm that we aren't actually lost (figuratively or literally). I just stopped posting because I was starting to question whether I might have Munchausen Syndrome. Seriously. Look at me, sick kid, sick kid, yada, yada, yada. I decided to wait until the cold/flu season was way, way over. So...

Tada!!! We're back! And we're having fun! Outside! We even went hiking and swimming and bike riding and gardening and lots of other fun stuff that didn't involve Spongebob at all! More about all of that later. Baby steps.

Until then, happy almost summer!

Oh, and.... just one more little thing.... if you've been around any of us in the past 3-4 weeks you might have Fifth Disease. Because it was all up in this house and the rash only shows up after the contagious part. Sorry about that. Also...currently Jack is on steroids and advair and albuteral and dicel dm and singular and zyrtec just because his genetic make-up is anti-Mother's Day lily. But whatev.