Open Enrollment

Today while I was at the library, I got a call from the principal at Camp's school. He told me that he had been made aware that Camp had been passing out a "letter" of some sort at recess and asked me if I knew about it. Sure I did. I had been the one to make 19 copies of the original. You know. For all the kids that will be dying to get into Camp's exclusive Karate class. So anyway, when I started laughing and told Mr. Harkleroad I was aware of the document, he remained silent--not quite sure what to say next. Then he said, "I don't want to ruin his entrepreneurial spirit, but we can't have him passing these out at school." I understood, of course, and asked him if he could please go easy on Camp when he addressed the issue with him. He agreed. After school, when Mr. Harkleroad was directing traffic near the parking lot, I rolled down my window to ask him if he would be signing up. He laughed and told me that he had asked Camp what kind of moves he knew and Camp had responded with "sand the floor" and "paint the fence". Pretty much all the best ones. :) Not bad for twenty bucks.

No Good Excuses

I'm still really tired. Unfortunately, I really don't have any good excuses for being so. You know why?! Because my boy Skip is sleeping through the night!!! The last two nights he slept close to 12 hours straight! Now this may not be any big thing to some of you, but I'll have you know, it's a HUGE thing for me. None of my babies have slept through the night until at least like eight months. But with each baby, my need for a full night's sleep has increased, so with Skip, I've made the whole sleeping-through-the-night thing more of a priority than ever. And I'm sure many of you will agree that the secret to getting a baby to sleep through the night can be summed up by two words: Baby Wise. It's important for me to say that when I've read On Becoming Baby Wise, I haven't agreed with much of what's in it. The authors definitely make you feel like a horrible mother if you don't feed your baby on a schedule(which has been me to a large degree with my three other babies). And like any other mother, I don't like to be preached to--and those babies were still happy and wonderful, mind you. However, there's no denying that these folks are right on the money when it comes to getting your baby to sleep through the night (given that you have a pretty normal baby), so Skip eats five times a day (sometimes six) every three hours, and he goes to bed right around 8 o'clock like a champ every night. Anyway, just in case that is still useful information to any of you.....

Oh, guess what?! Remember how I've told you how I fantasize about singing along out loud to my Ipod while on the treadmill at the gym? Well today I got to almost experience that vicariously through this lady in front of me. Except she wasn't singing. She was dancing! I'm not kidding. This lady was probably in her late 50's and she was rockin' out. It was so incredible. When I pulled up to the gym and I could see her through the window, I was convinced she must be drunk or something. But nope. That lady was just without the inhibitions the rest of us suffer from, and she was having a dang good time. I'm talking head banging, raising the roof--the whole nine yards, and all while on a treadmill! Man, it was cool.

And I know I've asked you all about this before, but I'm considering getting serious about couponing again and I'm wondering if any of you have ever done one of those couponing programs and been able to stay on it longterm. I'm curious to know if you really have saved a lot of money over all when you look at your total grocery spending every month, or if you have just saved a significant amount of money on things you wouldn't otherwise be buying. Any input will be greatly appreciated.

You know what's funny? Brian is really competitive. But that's not the funny part. The funny part is that he doesn't even care if he is playing a game against a three-year-old. There is still no chance he's gonna let that kid win. So in our house, the object is for all of the rest of us combined to try and beat Dad, and we still rarely win. One of these pictures is of Brian and the kids right after a game of memory. Can you see how little everyone's pile of matches is? Oh yeah. Except Brian's.

And for my interested posterity's sake, I want to say how darling it is that whenever Jane and Dan get a treat of any kind, they immediately combine them and run to their room to get little dishes in which to portion them out. Every treat inspires a little game of house. I love it. And Camp has started teaching Karate lessons. Sure, his only qualifications include having watched the new and old Karate Kid movies a hundred times, but he already has two students. Whom exactly goes without saying, I'm sure. Isn't it interesting how boys develop this crazy reflex of Karate chopping that happens as easily and as often as blinking? Truly amazing.