Birthday Winter Olympics Vacation Madness!

My baby boy is eight today. Back in 2006 I was watching a USA Olympic hockey game when my water broke, and the rest is history. We are in Florida visiting the nieces, swimming, going to Universal Studios, and again watching Olympic hockey, this time with Sam watching and cheering right along with mom and dad. It's been a fun ride so far Sammy! Happy birthday!

A Tale of Two Valentines

I always sort of dread valentine's day for the elementary school set. I've always had to fight with Sam to even sign his name to a basic card, and Lucy always wants to hand-craft elaborate valentine's for each and every person she knows, but she doesn't always come up with this idea until a day or two before the party.

So I was really surprised this year when Sam decided that he wanted to make rainbow loom bracelets for everyone in his class. Prior to this, he's only sucessfully made about 2.6 rainbow loom bracelets, and that was with a lot of help from me and/or his friend J. Luckily, he came up with idea with more than a week to work on it. We sat down with his classroom list and devised a schedule, and he's stuck with it really well. Plus making so many in a row has really helped with his technique. At this point he only has 3 or 4 left to go. He really wants to finish them tonight so that he can focus his attention on the new Lego set he got for an early birthday gift from grandma.

Lucy also devised her valentine's idea with ample time. She came out of the gate strong on her individualized, unique to each person valentine, but has hit some bumps along the way. For example, she's having trouble coming up with 19 completely authentic, different valentine's day messages. I've tried printing out examples for her, so she doesn't have to even think about the spelling, but they just aren't good enough for her poetic expectations. I suggested variations of 'I'm stuck on you' and 'Let's stick together' since she's using lots of stickers to decorate her valentines, but she prefers things like 'You make my heart melt like the springtime.' The two of us made a schedule, also, but she's hasn't been able to stay on it. If she powers through, she'll get finished, but she doesn't work well on a deadline. She keeps crying and dramaticially declaring that this valentine's day will be RUNIED! Meanwhile, she only has 7 or 8 more to go. I have a feeling I will be finishing them late thrursday night.

Since I'll probably be busy making helping with my kids' valentine's, consider this my valentine to all of you lovely folks out there in blogland.

My Two Sons

This is Fred crying because we took him out in the snow. As he requested. 

My boys, my lovely little fellas, have been being a humongous pain in the neck these past few weeks. I've avoided writing about because I was hoping it was a short phase brought on by the inconsistent school schedules and horrible weather we've been having. That may very well be true, but because of some damn groundhog we're looking at another six weeks of this shit, so I'm assuming the bad behavior isn't going away any time soon.

Fred. Oh my sweet little baby Fred. I was the last one to know about this shift in your behavior. You saved up all of your smiles and cuddles for your mama. Unfortunately you ran out sometime in the middle of last week, and now all I get is screaming and poking and hitting and spitting. And the whining, my god the whining. The only thing in life that you desire is a "blaster toy", which you will point at someone and scream FREEZE RAY! Thank you Star Wars and Despicable Me. Mostly, people don't like gun-type things pointed at their faces, and this particular blaster toy makes a sound that would drive even the most patient person insane. So we hide it from you. But usually you find it, and since we're smart enough to hide it up high, you just sit on the floor under said "blaster toy" and wail. "Fred, stop crying." "BUT I WANT A BLASTER TOY!" "Fred, come eat dinner." "BUT I WANT A BLASTER TOY!" "Here, have a cupcake instead." "BUT I WANT A BLASTER TOY!" If it wasn't Sam's effing blaster toy, we would have thrown it away weeks ago.

Speaking of Sam, guess who's grounded until he's 42? He's developed the attitude of a teenager, combined with the anger management issues of a DMV employee, and the impulse control of a toddler, with a touch of hormonal pregnant lady peppered in there, just for laughs. He's been alternately weepy (over NOTHING) then shove-y, then mouthy, and then punchy. Mostly with us at home, but I've seen it happen after school and at hockey. He actually got kicked out of practice on Monday (by me) for being way to rough with his team mates and giving me enough lip to last a lifetime. The hilarious thing about this is that he's practically been an angel during school, and his piano teacher sent me a long email last week about how lovely he is (and Lucy, too). I'm worried because he doesn't seem to pick up on social cues, and so he'll be goofing around with a friend, things will get a little too rough, and Sam, who is a giant among second graders, can't seem to stop himself. Even after calling his name 3 or 4 times, he doesn't stop what he's doing, and I usually have to intervene physically. If he's with his friends or team mates, it doesn't come off as malicious, just annoying. Lucy, on the other hand, he seems intent on killing.

We're going on vacation in a few weeks, and we're going to be spending a lot of quality time together, including TWO 16 hour car rides. I hope we all make it back with our sanity (and limbs) intact. 

Randomized

This week has been unusual, which is actually not that unusual if you live on the eastern side of this country. The amount of school the kids are missing is getting a bit ridiculous, and not just for us moms out there. They are getting a wee bit nutty as well. Sam, who has never ever tried to change a diaper before, decided to try and get Fred ready for bed the other night and accidentally zippered Freddie's penis into his footie pajamas. It was only a flesh wound, and Dr. Dad was home, so no trips to the emergency room for this case. Maggie has a great big bruise on her forehead (just in time for pre-school picture day, YAY!) because Fred has become fond of throwing and hitting and kicking and spitting at just about anyone. The instant you put him in timeout, however, he starts wailing about how he just wants to be nice to someone! Please! Let me be nice to someone! Lucy had a total meltdown because we listened to her favorite song on youtube (from Frozen, just like every other 6 year old girl int he world) and I inadvertently selected a different version of the SAME EXACT SONG. But to her very delicate ears, it wasn't acceptable, and she loudly screamed that she couldn't live in this world anymore. SOB is working at a new job with a new schedule, too. So everything boils down to THIS WEEK WAS CRAY.

We're going to Florida in a few weeks, and I for one am counting the days.

Kids Who Play Hockey Have Parents Who Play Hockey

When I was a kid I was at the ice rink several days a week. My mom worked there, so we went along with her most of the time. I skated each weekend, sometimes at multiple sessions. I met one of my very best friends there when I was 11, and we still keep in touch today. Once I went to college, though, I hung up my skates. Not intentionally, but just because other things got in the way. I don't even think I took skates with me when I moved to Philly. The first time I skated after that was on Sam's third birthday, and it was shaky. Once we moved to Morgantown, I began skating more often with Lucy at her 'hockey' practice and now I'm skating several times a week with Sam's team. Add in the occasional public session with the kids, and I'm feeling pretty good about my skating ability.

My hockey ability? Now that's another story. When I'm at practice with Sam and we have to demonstrate something, I usually hang back. The other coaches on our team (we have SIX) all played or currently play hockey, so I've never been confident enough to step up. I mean, I think I can do most of the maneuvers we do in practice, but do I really want to try them out for the first time in front of a bunch of kids who think I know what I'm doing? Nope. No thanks! Not today.

What to do, then? Luckily, the answer was revealed to me in an email from our local rec center. A women's hockey clinic, for all skill levels, running for eight weeks. I ran out, bought myself a purple practice jersey (of course) and didn't sleep for days, I was so anxious. I got there extra early on my first day (of course) and began suiting up. I had put on all of my equipment the night before just to try it out. I've been dressing Sam for three years, but never myself! It was a little weird moving around in all of those pads, but I managed to get my skates on and get onto the ice without any major pratfalls.

After a few laps, I was feeling good! It was definitely weird skating with all of this stuff on, but I was glad to have it when I did a major belly flop during our scrimmage. We did some skating drills and some stick work, which was what I was the most anxious about. I yap at Sam that he should always volunteer to go first during drills, and since I didn't want to be a hypocrite, I got right in line behind the coach when he started working with pucks. And I lost that damn puck every time I had to make a turn, with all of the other ladies watching. But by then I was having so much fun I didn't care!

The next week I recruited a friend to come, too, so it was even more fun! I skated my butt off, and I felt it later on, but after only a few weeks I'm feeling a lot more comfortable playing hockey. So next week I'm joining the actual league that plays actual games. Crazy, I know, but I think I kind of love it!

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Speaking of hockey games, our team came in second place in our last tournament, and Sam got his very first trophy. He was so, so excited! Go Hornets!

Bathroom Reveal!

A few days, and a lot of dust later, I give you…The Bathroom!

As you can see, we tried to keep the style and age of the house in mind when redecorating this room. Everything looks kind of old, but is actually new! Here are some of the details.

I really like the way this mirror and lights came together. We have similar, original light fixtures in our master bathroom, so I was very happy when we found these. 

The sink is tiny, but so is the room, so it works out. I love the octagonal shape of the old sink, and we wanted to stick with a wall mount. We had to look around for a bit, but we finally found one we liked. Picking out the faucet was also a bit of a challenge, but SOB came home with this one one day and that was one less decision I had to mull over! +1 for the Husband!

And look! A toilet! That isn't a goofy color! White toilets now officially outnumber colorful toilets in our home. (We still have 1 pink and 1 blue one.) You can see that I'm not so great at photo staging since I left some discarded toilet paper rolls and plastic in the trash can. Oh well, this isn't a magazine spread, right?

Here is a bonus shot of the kitchen floor. Do not look at my cluttered counter tops, please. 

Here's what it looked like last December!

Now we just have to tackle the other 3 bathroom renovations, and the basement, and the windows, and the roof. Wish us luck!

New Year's Renovations

It seems like instead of resolutions, we make renovations for new year's. Last year was the big kitchen remodel of '13. Since we never ended up re-doing the floor in there, we finally decided it was time. We had to put down area rugs since the new counters weren't in the exact same places as the old ones, and the only area rugs we had were brown. The kitchen is already a small room, and it only has windows at one end, so putting dark rugs down makes it seem even darker. So sometime next week we will be switching it out for big, bright tiles.

And since we were going to have the tile guy out here already, we decided to go ahead and re-do our first floor powder room. One of the lovely things about this old house of ours is how many pink bathrooms we have…THREE! The master bathroom is pink, the upstairs hall bathroom is pink and our powder room is pink, too. With maroon and brown accents. Observe...

Isn't that special? Here are some closer looks...

True confession time: I love this sink. If we could somehow re-enamel it and re-chrome the fixtures, I would keep it. While those are actual things you can do, they were not very cost effective, and so a new, similarly shaped sink and faucet was purchased. But it isn't as cool.

This is the medicine cabinet. This also doesn't offend me, as it is very true to the style of the house. However, the edges are kind of yucky, especially at the bottom. The back of the mirror is metal, and after years and years it's gotten rusty. We are replacing it with a simple oval mirror with a beveled edge, like this one. Here is a closer look at the lights...

These lights wouldn't bother me so much if the crystals were original. When we moved in there were more missing then not, and we couldn't find a good match, so we ended up replacing them entirely. I have the old ones in a bag because they match another old chandelier we have. Also, they are incredibly dim. The replacements will look something like this. 

And finally, the pièce de résistance, the toilet. 

In all of it's maroon glory! First of all, you can't ever really tell if it's clean. It's maroon, and it's located in a dimly lit room. Secondly, it's incredibly low to the floor. Good for the kids, annoying for the adults. Thirdly, like all of the old toilets in this house, it's got a big water tank and takes forever to refill. Since this is the only toilet on the main floor, it gets a lot of use. The kids aren't patient enough to wait for the tank to refill to flush, so it can often be found with wads of toilet paper floating around in there. It's getting replaced with a standard issue white toilet. Easier to clean (or at least know it's clean), higher and with more efficient water usage. Oh, and that pink, brown, beige and maroon floor tile? OUT! It's getting replaced with black and white hexagon tiles on the floor. The pink and brown wall tile? OUT! Replaced with white subway tile with a black bull nose. Oh, and we'll have to paint the top parts of the walls. Right now they are a light beige, but they will be painted a very light gray, eventually.I'm hopeful that this project won't take too, too long. I mean, the room is only 4 feet wide by 8 feet deep. The demo might be a bit dodgy, but our tile man works quickly, so hopefully I'll have new photos to share next week!