It's school fair time of year!

This week is one of those weeks that zips by because it's a four day school week.  Add in two school fairs and a field trip and we're talking about a week that flys!  And, just for fun let's toss a 2nd grade end of year luau planning meeting on top of that.  And I thought I was in for a nice relaxing week.

Today I got a 6:54AM wake up call from the school district.  It was a recording letting us know that the Spring Fair was on for today.  Yesterday we had some cold, miserable, rainy weather.  I was actually banking on either a rained out fair or a chilly day outside.  I was hoping for the chilly day with a side of ominous cloud cover.  The day started off glum enough.  We had cool temperatures and plenty of clouds.  By noon it was warming up but some of the clouds were still kind enough to lull me into a false sense of security.  I decided that a short sleeved shirt and no sunscreen were the way to go.  Five minutes later I pull onto the field to park and realize that it's a little warmer at the school than I expected.  Figures.  We live essentially two blocks from the school, and every single day I find that it's always colder at the school than it is in my front yard.  So, of course, I'm perplexed that it's warmer over there today.  Then the clouds decided that they should make their exit.  As a result, Ellie and I both have sunburn now.  I can deal with myself having it.  I know better and it's my own stupid fault that I have it.  What I can't deal with is Ellie having a burn.  I knew I should have put sunscreen on her before we left, but I started rationalizing all the reasons why I didn't need to.  I wasn't planning to be there for very long, it was cloudy and it wasn't that hot out there.  None of these are or ever will be valid reasons to not use sunscreen when you have very fair skin.  So thanks to me, Ellie has some very red skin.  I have a nice heaping pile of Mommy Guilt.  Someday when my skin cancer ridden daughter granny-dumps me at the worst nursing home she can find and never looks back I'll have no one to blame but myself (let's hope this scenario never actually comes into play).

We had a pretty good time at the fair.  I met up with my friend Amy while we were there.  Her daughter was in Madeline's class last year, and she has a little brother who is around Ellie's age.  Amy and I had a pretty good time wrangling our crazy three year olds and trying to keep tabs on Madeline and Angie.  

I mentioned to Amy that I volunteered to teach a CCD class this year, but I was waiting to hear back from the deacon about it because I was going to have to bring Ellie with me to the class.  I've been trying to figure out if I could get a neighbor to watch Ellie and I would take their kid to CCD with me and bring them back in exchange, but I hate to burden someone like that.  Amy perked up when I told her about me wanting to teach and she actually volunteered to watch Ellie for me provided the deacon will put Angie in the same session that I teach.  How awesome is that?   If the deacon agrees, then Ellie will get to play with her friend every week and I'll get to volunteer like I wanted.  Not to mention, Amy's generous offer just sets off a nice chain of good deeds.  

I'm so happy to be surrounded by such nice people like Amy and my neighbors.  I actually feel like I'm part of a community now.  I haven't felt like this since I moved away from my hometown nearly 9 years ago.  After almost two years in this town, I can now go places and recognize lots of familiar faces on a regular basis.  I love it!

Clearly, I'm a glutton for punishment

I wound up the color of a tomato yesterday.  I tried to avoid the sun, but it simply wasn't possible. First, there was Madeline's soccer game where we had to be there at noon.  I try not to keep company  with the sun at noon when it's hot out.  I get burned every time (pun intended).  Then, I tried to hide in the house once we got home and it was evident that I was a tad on the red side.  That didn't last very long.  Bryan wanted my input on some landscaping stuff and the next thing I knew I was sort of trapped outside.  After giving Bryan my approval the landscaping, I got sucked into helping him with the weed block.  Next thing I know, I'm now helping with putting the safety fence up around the pool and other random things.  I wanted so desperately to run inside and hide from the sun, but Bryan needed my help so I stayed out there and baked.

I decided today that I was going to stay inside not matter what, but I'm crazy and decided to go pull weeds.  I was smart enough to run inside when I realized that once again the sun was beating down on me.  I'm sure I only added to my sunburn. And, I'm willing to bet that I'll be back outside again later today once Madeline gets home from school.  There's no way my girls are going to be content staying inside on a day like this.

 I'm happy that Ellie is smart enough to play in the shade.  I used sunscreen on her yesterday and the poor girl got burnt at the soccer game.  So I'm suffering from Mommy Guilt again.  If I didn't go to Madeline's soccer game I'd feel bad because Madeline would be upset, and because I went to the game I feel bad because poor Ellie is now red.  I just can't win sometimes.  Ellie, unlike me, has a pretty good understanding that going out in the sun just isn't good for her and she tries to avoid it anytime she has a sunburn.

I think I may be more compliant with staying indoors if I wasn't so worried about making sure the front yard looks good for Madeline's First Communion.  I'd like to be able to take pictures of her on the lawn before we head to the church.  My neighbors spent all day yesterday working on their yard getting it ready for their son's First Communion (same Mass as Madeline's).  Maybe I should just walk Madeline over to their lawn.

I'm going to be totally exhausted by the time Madeline's First Communion rolls around.  I have 12 more days left to obsess about getting the house ready, making sure I have everything I need for the party and of course, making sure I have Madeline looking picture perfect for her big day.

Attack of the Mommy Brain!

Before I had kids, I had an amazing memory.  Tell me something once and I'd never forget it.  After I had Madeline the memory was still pretty good, but I'd have Mommy moments here and there.  No big deal.  Now I'm lucky most days if I can remember my name let alone my kids'.  Ask poor Ellie.  That child gets called "Madel-Oh that's not your name!-the other kid" all the time.  Such a sad state my poor memory is in these days.

I realized around midnight last night that I was supposed to bring in a 22 or 23 ounce bag of marshmallow's for Ellie's class, but couldn't remember when I needed them.  Then I sat there in my paint fume induced confused state, no doubt, and thought it was odd that the ounce of the marshmallow bag was specified on the sign up sheet.  That's when it occurred to me that I must have had another Mommy Brain moment (Mommy Guilt, that was your entrance cue).  Yeah, so I take a look at the calendar and realize that the MWF class needed the marshmallows for the 22nd and Ellie's class needed them for the 23rd. The only marshmallow items in the house are peeps and there was simply no way I could get the marshmallows before school since I have to drop Madeline off first.  This isn't the first Mommy Brain moment of the week.  I also forgot to remind Madeline to take her library books to school on Monday, so I'm expecting another late notice from the school any day now.  And as I type this, I realize that I never emailed Madeline's teacher to let her know that Madeline needs to leave her glasses at her desk for P.E. today.  I told Madeline to tell her teacher to check her email in an hour because I wanted to explain the situation.  School gets out in 50 minutes so emailing the teacher now would just be pointless.  

I even left the dog out this morning when I took the kids to school!  Mr. Furkins always gets locked in his crate when we go out.  Today, in my rush to get the kids to school on time, I forgot about the dog. Oscar clearly thought it was odd and he put himself in the crate.  He was sitting there looking all confused when I came into the house with the groceries.  Any other day, and I would have been home 5-20 minutes after leaving, but not today.  I went grocery shopping and was gone for more than an hour.  I'm very proud of Oscar for behaving himself. 

I'm losing my mind and I don't like it.  I hope I don't forget to pick Madeline up from CCD tonight since someone else is taking her there.

Exhausted

I'm not sure what happened to the last two days.  It's all a blur of painting, pulling weeds, sweeping up dirt and handing my girls snacks and juice.

I've spent most of the past two days either on my knees or hunched over.  My back, knees and hands are really sore, and I'm sunburned. The good news is I have a lot to show for it.  I have three garden areas that are weed free.  I even went so far as to prune back a lot of the plants that we getting out of control.  Almost all of the trim in my kitchen and entryway is freshly painted.  I have a 6 foot section of woodwork that is blocked by the fridge that still needs painting.  I have one side of a door left to paint and then just the back of my front door and kitchen door will need to be painted.  The front and kitchen doors are my Friday project.  I need the locks off of those doors and I need to be able to have those doors left unlocked for at least 4 hours so the paint can dry.  Since Bryan works from home on Friday it's the perfect day for me to tackle the doors.

I'm beginning to suffer from Mommy guilt since I've been spending more time on my projects than I have with my kids.  Madeline is always busy playing with kids in our neighborhood so she's not bothered by my preoccupation.  Poor Ellie on the other hand spent most of today wandering aimlessly.  I took breaks to spend some time with her while Madeline was at school but I still feel like I neglected her.  I know she wanted to play Candyland with me earlier in the day but when I finished with the trim she moved on to wanting a snack and the game never got played.  Madeline played it with her when she got home from school but the game ended with Ellie screaming and crying.  I always make sure Ellie wins at least one round before we put the game away.  Madeline isn't always willing to throw the game for her little sister. Today she wasn't willing to lose.  

Ellie's day wasn't all bad.  She did manage to score a lolipop at the parish office today.  I had to get the rosary I brought for Madeline for her First Communion to get it Blessed.  If I didn't I'd be dealing with Dad induced guilt in about 2 1/2 weeks.  

My dad was pretty concerned a few weeks ago because the rosary beads I had Madeline's First Communion pictures taken with weren't Blessed.  I think it's kind of funny that my dad made such a big deal over this.  I could see if I had been raised Catholic and should have known better but, that's not the case.  

My dad is Catholic and my mother was raised Episcopalian.  My mom wasn't willing to allow her kids to be raised Catholic.  To hear my dad tell the story it all boils down to her not wanting her parents to disapprove.  So in some sort of compromise, my parents selected Lutheran  as the religion for my brothers and me.  Makes sense, right?  After I hit third grade I managed to convince my mother not to make me go to the awful Sunday School at the Lutheran church anymore (a new pastor who wasn't well liked helped the situation).  Prior to that I was pretty skilled at hanging out in the stairwell and hardly ever making it to my Sunday School class.  I knew in my gut from a very early age that the Lutheran church wasn't the place for me. On the occasions when my brothers would catch me dodging class and bring me to where I was supposed to be the teachers would make this big deal about the new kid in the class. Pretty funny when you think about how they didn't know they were missing a kid.  That would never fly in the RE program at our church.  

Once Bryan and I got engaged I knew that I had my golden moment to convert to Catholicism. My mom wasn't happy about it and I'm pretty sure to this day she still isn't.  She tells me frequently that Madeline would make a great Protestant.  No thanks, Mom.  Essentially my  parents think that I only converted so we could get married in the Catholic church.  I'm not sure how they forgot me asking them to let me go to CCD when I was a kid for several years (Imagine that, while many of my friends were wishing they didn't have to go to CCD, I was wishing I could go.).  I essentially used my engagement as a catalyst to convert so I wouldn't have to be hassled by my mother.  So nine years ago today I was confirmed at the Easter Vigil.  No one in my family was there, but Bryan and my best friend (my sponsor) were.