Random Bits

Cecilia and Caroline recently watched Cinderella, the Disney version, for the first time. As kid movies go, it is a relatively tame one other than the stepsisters calling people "stupid idiots," although my children were appalled at how the king behaved... loosing his temper at the Duke to the point that he was chasing him around with a sword. "He's worse than the stepmother and stepsisters!" they exclaimed. "At least the stepmother didn't try to stab Cinderella!" They do have a very good point. I guess it shows that they haven't seen lots of "violence humor" since they don't get it. I told them it is supposed to be funny, showing how badly the king looses his temper, but that yes, it would really be horrible to chase somebody around swinging a sword at them, even though they work for you and are supposed to be somebody you like!

As a funny side note, Cecilia thinks Cinderella's dog, Brutus (or Bruno?), is named "Brutal."

And speaking of dogs, there is a new one barking in our neighborhood, and it sounds like it is in the yard behind our next-door neighbor's... and it barks all. the. time. It sounds like a bigger dog, and it doesn't just bark, but sounds like it is dying... arf, arf, aroooooooooough! That last part is a low-pitched whine. It does this when we are outside, inside, day and night. I'm about to suggest that somebody go put it out of its misery. ;) But really, I feel sorry for it if it's life is really that miserable...

I just got a new notebook. I have been carrying a clipboard with me to appointments and any place where I will have to wait, so I can make a grocery list or something productive like that. I love the notebook - everything is going in there. All my to-do lists, all my packing lists for trips, jotting down memorable quotes said by one of the kids, taping in good stuff that I have printed off but doesn't have a home, brainstorming baby names... all in one place. It makes me feel more organized.

Awhile back I wrote about how I kept seeing cars with monograms on the back window and how I think that is a bit silly... I have been noticing lately how lots of people have those little decals of people, one for each member of their family. My feelings on those go both ways... on the one hand, I have seen several of them locally that depict families with four or more children, and I think it's a good thing to see so many people with "large" families, and that they are showing others without embarrassment that they have lots of kids. Then there are the ones with two kids - a boy and a girl, of course - and they are all wearing Mickey Mouse hats, and there is a decal alongside them for Hilton Head or something. ;) A lot of people have this connotation that if a couple has one daughter and one son, then they have "the perfect family." There are all kinds of reasons why that's a bad thing to say to people... what if they really do want more children and are struggling with secondary infertility? What does that say about the other families who have children of only one gender so far? What about the families who have both genders but have continued to have more children - have they ruined their "perfect family," then? I'm grateful my parents didn't stop with their "perfect family," because I have two additional brothers because of it! But back to those family stickers on cars... yesterday I saw one that had two adult stickers and... four dog stickers and a cat sticker. As I approached from a distance and saw seven little blobs on the back of the very small car window (smaller than normal-sized four door sedan), I thought, "Wow, that is a tiny car for a family of seven!" Then I saw that most of them were animals and not people and thought, "Oh.... I see..."

Speaking of children and their genders, people can make somewhat hurtful comments regarding gender of children... often people will now notice I am pregnant and comment. Last week, one person said to Chris, "I hope for your sake this one's a boy!" Now, that can be taken as lighthearted, you know, like making a joke about him being outnumbered, but it still doesn't sound quite right. Then we had the comment, "Another girl? Don't you know how to make boys?" Ouch - what to even say to that (even though I am sure the comment was intended to be funny)? I have just been responding with things like, "Well, I'm still pretty young, you know, so there's time yet..." I don't really know what else to respond with.

We have planted all our tomato and bell pepper seedlings... many of them in pots on the patio this year. We shall see if they will do well... we have not had good luck growing things lately. The patio gets more direct sunlight that the garden boxes, so the hope is that the plants will grow better there. We added a third blueberry bush that is still pretty small, but hopefully it will get much bigger over the next few years. Also in the yard, we got three pine trees taken down. One was oozing sap - pine bark beetles, probably - and the other two were either too close to the house or leaning . With all the storms lately, I am glad they are gone! Our back yard does have less shade now, so it may be that we have to use sunscreen more often in the summer, unfortunately. The other day I was outside and kept smelling the strong scent of Pine-sol... I was starting to get concerned that somebody had been dumping cleaner somewhere around our yard. Then I realized, oh yeah - that must just be the smell of actual pine, since the trees were taken down and we have wood chips from their stumps in our yard! Pregnancy really amplifies smells for me (can you amplify something that is not a sound??).

We have basically finished up the school year! I hope to get around to posting photos from the last several letters at some point. I need to finalize our first grade plans and then maybe will do a post about them as well. I think we'll start first grade in July so that we can get a few months in before the baby's birth.