Thursday, June 11, 2015

May 2015

Occasions
—Mother’s Day: Annika was the main instigator of the plans for Mother’s Day, drafting R. as necessary, including: Buying a waffle iron to make waffles for me (they were delicious!), making me several little crafty adorable presents, and buying a flowering plant in a pretty blue flowerpot. I got to sleep in, too! Yay for Mother’s Day!
—Daddy’s birthday: Homemade brownies with ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce, presents, family dinner, cards — we celebrated old Daddy Dad’s birthday in style. 
Grandparents visit
Grandma & Grandpa flew out for a springtime visit, our Christmas gift to them (and sort of a do-over for that particular visit, ugh), arriving in time to allow R. and I to go to a Senior Sauce (aka kid-free) and also, the next weekend, to go to the Plumed Horse in Saratoga and stay overnight in a hotel (a birthday gift from me to R.). The kids, as usual, forgot we existed as soon as G&G got here, and the four of them spent many quality hours together, just enjoying each other’s company. Grandma even escorted Annika to her classmate Alanna’s pool party, just about a block from our house, and came home with more information about Alanna’s family than I’d gathered in a year of knowing the family — that’s Grandma! 
School happenings
—Art Show: Annika had two pieces in the school’s Art Vistas showcase, so we all went to the evening show. She was really proud of her work, and it was neat to see what the other grades had been up to as well.
—School open house: Grandpa stayed home sick, but the rest of us piled into the car and went to the school open house. Grandma got to meet Annika’s teacher, the fabulous Mrs. Casey, and we were all taken through the list of “things to see” by our tourguide, Annika, in order and at a regimented pace (that’s our girl!). It was pretty amazing to see how much they got done, and how she’s improved from what we already thought was a high level of work. Lukas, up past his bedtime, was a butthead, except for the brief moments when he was lounging on the beanbags in the classroom’s reading nook, like he owned the place …
Playdates with new playmates: I haven’t said it this way exactly, but with Vilma moving back to Finland, Annika needs to diversify her friendships — so I was very glad to help arrange a few new-ish friend playdates: one with her buddy Raina (which went very, very well — she’s a great kid), and one with Brianna, who mostly pals around with a couple of other girls but is fun and cool and I like her mom, so it’s nice for me too. :-)
—Girl Scouts party: At Annika’s desperately-pleaded request, I have signed her up with a Girl Scouts troop for this fall. The rest of them have been meeting all spring (Annika already had piano and dance on the meeting days), but invited Annika and the other girl who had a time conflict to their end-of-year party at Brianna’s. It was fun and a good chance for her to get to know them a little better, although she gave me grief on the way home (as is her wont) about how come she hadn’t been meeting with them all along and how she didn’t feel like part of the group yet (see above re: conflict.) Oi.

Rando
Annika's mystery rash, Lukas’s HFM: Antibiotics killed Annika's mystery rash (see April 2015) right away. But then, Lukas sprouted similar bumps on his feet and wrists; we treated it with antibiotics (though his strep test ended up coming back negative), before we found out the neighbor kid with whom he’d recently had a playdate had Hand, Foot and Mouth disease — which we concluded was what he had, instead of the same thing Annika had had. Gaaaaaaah! Anyway, they both got over their ailments, and all is now well.

Quotable Kids
—Lukas, in re: killing a fly: “I gotta get something very very sticky, and very very very smashy!”
—Lukas’s version of the middle bit of the ABC song: "A K K K LMNOP"
—Lukas in his crib one morning, to me: "I'm turning into a dinosaur! [spins] Raaaaaaaawr! I'm turning back into a precious sweet boy! [spins other direction, whispering 'Magic powers!’]"
—Lukas asking the important questions: “Does Thor play with toys when he's tired of banging his hammer?"
—Annika, officiously, to all of us, clipboard in hand: “Take this survey. Survey: What's your favorite animal: fox, wolf, cheetah, or cat?” R. and I choose from the list. Lukas’s answer: “Ghost.”
“Sauerkrap” = Lukas’s rendition of sauerkraut