Doing My Job

Occasionally my job requires that I be a responsible adult outside of school hours.  Usually I complete this task on weeknights, staying at school until 10:30 pm and then staggering through the next day like a zombie who has been up past her bedtime.  A few weekends ago, though, I managed to delegate the job to Margaret, who did a marvelous job of my job.  One of the nice things about a school is that it often is littered with blackboards that are just crying out to be written on.  In case you can't read Margaret's eclectic handwriting and orthography, this says "my family is at a new house and I like it."

 She also helped me keep track of where students were.  We have a program on an iPad that monitors them, and she helped me out with it.

She got a little drunk with power, though, and had to be restrained before her evil cackles became too pronounced.

 I did let her dismiss the kids from dinner, and she thought that meant that she got to pick people to leave one at a time.  I let her do it for a minute, because it was amusing, but then I had to override her authority.

I've decided that the key to successful work-life balance is to delegate some parts of your work to your family.  That works, right?

In Her Birthday Suit?

Yes, this is getting repetitive.

But Margaret celebrated her birthday by choosing some somewhat odd pajamas.

I suggested to her that these pajamas might make her feel a little cold in the night, and she gave me an exceptionally disdainful look (as only a 5-year-old can) and told me that she wouldn't get cold because she was wearing a hat.  Duh, Mom.  It's like I've never experienced clothes before.

Anyway, we got her into pajamas.  And then she needed to go downstairs and go to the bathroom.  Leo was reading to her (I was wrangling the sobbing Ellie to bed).  She came back upstairs (reportedly) with visible chocolate stains on her face, but denied any side trips on her bathroom visit. When I went down to do the dishes, this is what I found:

Our new house has very, very large mice.

Margaret's Birthday

I realize that there is a distressing similarity of posts coming out recently, but the problem is not me so much as the fact that all that the girls are doing is having birthdays.  We try to make things more interesting, but there's really no hope for it; they just keep having cake and presents and refuse to do anything else.

I'm sure that this is someone else's fault.  I'm not sure whose, but I'll get back to you on that.

Anyway, on Tuesday it was Margaret's turn.  We invited her grandparents over for dinner, and I cooked what she asked for.  I particularly liked that she requested salad, not because she would ever consider eating salad, but because she wanted to toss the salad.

And then we got to the cake.  I was realizing that my children are very lucky in that I make them cakes (I had this thought as I was melting the chocolate to make icing for Margaret's cake) from real ingredients.  Then I realized that since I almost always make them cakes from real ingredients, they have no idea how lucky they are.  It's a lowering thought.

Anyway. Margaret liked the cake.

She worked very hard at blowing out the candles, and finally made it with an assist from her Dad.  She was very proud of herself, and insisted that it still worked for wishing.  I did not argue.

She ate her cake, and played with her presents, one of which was a globe.  The globe was very exciting to her.  The globe was also very exciting to Ellie, who was most put out that she didn't have a globe.  Margaret tried to tell her all about it, but it wasn't as successful as one might have hoped.  We heard Margaret yelling aggrievedly from the other room "Ellie won't let me share my knowledge!"  So she shared her knowledge with Leo.

Margaret also got an atlas, and Ellie told us things about that.

And then they went to bed, with Ellie sobbing quietly to herself that she needed a globe so that she could know where things were in her world.  It was very sad.

In Her Birthday Suit?

Last night, Ellie decided that dinner was a clothes-optional affair, which wasn't really what I wanted, but on the other hand, she was willing to eat food, so we called it a wash.

She got a little shy about the pictures, but when I said that they were for Nana, she allowed as how we could take some.

I'm thinking that this isn't some sort of inappropriate cultural appropriation, but rather someone who likes eating in the nude, and forgot to put her necklace all the way on.  Perhaps we can convince her to abide by a more stringent dress code tonight.

Happy Birthday!

(Some people might think that I was wishing happy birthday to one or both of my children, who will persist in having birthdays incessantly this week, but I'm not.  I'm wishing happy birthday to my mother, whose only request for her birthday was that I start posting to the blog again.  And so I am.  Happy birthday, Mom).

It is, however, a blog post about birthdays, because my children had them.  Or will have them tomorrow.

Saturday was Ellie's birthday, and in an attempt to set world records for sugar consumption, we started off with doughnuts.  Spelled properly.

I'm pretty sure that last face was a dislike of being photographed in the middle of her breakfast, because Margaret was pretty happy with the sprinkles on her sugar rush of choice.  We spent the rest of Saturday cleaning up the house, and getting things ready for the joint birthday party on Sunday, though we took a little time-out and had a family party for Ellie on Saturday night, where she had a chance to immolate herself.

That last one is apparently where we said "blow them out like a pirate, Ellie!"

So she did.

And then to bed, and another sugar-fueled day of madness the next day.

We opted for a simple party, which gave the impression of being a laid-back, easy-going party, but actually involved a great deal of work.

We actually decorated.  Well, put up a garland and blew up balloons and I monogrammed aprons for the guests.  That last bit may have been over the top.

Oh, and Ellie dressed as a doctor, because of course she did.

We had five small girls in our house.  Admittedly, two of them were ours, but that doesn't mean that they were less work.  If anything, quite the reverse.  Anyway, we made necklaces, and then we made pizzas, and then we iced cupcakes, and then we opened presents.  It was quite fun, if tiring, and I only got a moment to take pictures when we were at the icing cupcakes stage, but it appeared that people had fun.

In each of these pictures, a different child is licking her knife.  That's how you can tell they're different.

Anyway, a good time was had by all and it was a successful birthday event.

One more, and then we're done for 6 months.

Playing with Fire

I've been remiss in posting these, perhaps because I am a bad person, but also perhaps because I am a busy person.  Next week is exam week, which I think will help me have more time where I am sitting in a classroom staring at children taking tests and feeling that I ought to do something other than stare at them.

Anyway, I wanted to share pictures from last weekend.  Ellie was being small and sad and gelatinous in her fever (which has cleared up, but has left her a little small and sad and gelatinous).  Margaret, however, was glorying in the fire-pit that her grandfather has built on the back part of his acreage.

Well, not actually in it, thankfully, but around and near it.

She was actually very good around the fire and didn't immolate herself even once.  She felt that the fire-pit, while all very nice in its way, wasn't quite finished to her exacting standards, and so she went and picked up some more rocks (or bits of mortar) and fixed things.  Her grandfather has many fine qualities, but he lacks her discerning eye.