(Jachin wants his very own blog. He’s picked out a Wordpress template and everything. So until Daddy (Jon) gets it up and running, Jachin will be testing out his posting skills here.)

have you heard of mario? Cause i play it all the time. and boy its fun.

this guy is good check him out 

That is all i can think of right now so… its over!

I completely forgot my Saturday Latin Insult last week, so this week I’m making it a long one.

Montis Tu Quidem Mali In Me Ardentis Iam Dudum Iacis. Perge, Excrucua, Carnufex, Quandoquidem Occepisti Semel.

– “All along you’ve been splattering me with the seething lava of your viciousness. Come on, you torturer, you murderer, now you’re ready to blow, let’s see what you can REALLY do!”

(Plautus, Mercator)

An hour ago I mysteriously, and without warning, woke up and could not go back to sleep. It happens. And more often than I’d like. But usually when it happens I will eventually fall back to sleep if I stay nice and quiet and relaxed… and as long as I DO NOT look at the clock. (If I look at the clock, I am a goner. I will then stress about how many minutes of precious sleep I am losing and how oh, if I can just go back to sleep RIGHT NOW I can still get a good, solid 5 hours.)

So I stayed quiet and tried not to roll around so much and I only took one pee break (and I left the bathroom light off so the illumination would not alert my brain that anything fishy was going on). I was just getting a tiny inkling of hope of sleep when I heard it start. The rain. A sudden downpour hitting the roof. Pelting the windows. There were a few flashes of lightning. On any other night, this little storm would be a Godsend because a thunderstorm is the only time I ever truly sleep like a rock. But tonight is different. Tonight this sucks. We had our landscape curbing done today in preparation for grass on Wednesday. And the nice guy who did it told me specifically to keep water and kids off of it for 24 hours. Well, it has only been 15 hours. And now it’s getting pelted. And now there is no way I’m going back to sleep because I’m thinking of how horrible it’s going to look in the morning.

Oh yeah, and the black drain tubes that are hooked to the downspouts (that safely carry the water out and away from the house)… yeah, those are currently flung into the window wells so as not to touch the newly-done curbing. So there is a thunderstorm draining into the window wells.

*sigh* I’m up anyway. If the rain doesn’t slow I will go outside in the dark, trudge through the mud, and pull them out. Pictures of the potentially ruined curbing in the A.M…. the REAL A.M., not the still-dark-out A.M. Only idiots and security guards are awake in this kind of A.M.

Jachin: Mom, do you like me?

Me: Of course. I love you. And like you.

Zoe: What?!? You mean you don’t love me?

Me: I love you, too.

Zoe: No you don’t. You only love Jachin.

Me: Why do you guys think that I can only love one of you at a time? Do you seriously think it’s impossible for me to love both of you at once?

Jachin: It is impossible to love us both. Your “Love Tank” is too empty.

I didn’t even know I had one of those, let alone the status of its emptiness.

So I’m a little stressed. There are quite a few things contributing to that stress (all of which I will address here), but the number one thing is that school is starting next week. What’s the big deal, you say? School starts every fall; it’s the circle of academic life. Oh, but you’d be missing one rather large chunk of information: I am home schooling Jachin this year.

Yeah, that’s big. And yeah, I’m probably certifiable.

But it wasn’t a decision I made lightly. I’ve been mulling over the idea since he was in kindergarten. And then last year it happened: the gap between a few years in private school and a year in public school finally closed. He learned absolutely nothing new last year. Oh no, wait. He did tell me that he learned something about pioneers that he didn’t know before. So I suppose the year wasn’t a total loss. But I can safely say that 99% of what was covered last year in school was simply review for him. He isn’t learning to study. He’s growing lazy in the whole “absorbing new ideas” thing. A few weeks into school last fall I decided that, fine, if he wasn’t learning new things at school, I’d work with him at home with more challenging things. Because, sure, after six hours in a classroom the thing he really wants to do is to come home and sit down for a couple more hours for more “school work”. If I was going to teach him at home anyway, why send him to school to waste away a sizeable chunk of the day? Oh riiiight, all of those quality hours of four-square.

So I did it. I enrolled him in the k12 program (a fabulous! program), but I did it through Alpine School District… so that when I tell people that I’m home schooling and they give me that ooooooh, you’re one of THOSE crazy people looks I can cop out and say, “Well, he’s actually still a student of Alpine School District”. Like, I possibly won’t completely ruin him. But I actually have told very few people. (Until posting it just now on my blog for the world to see.) I’ve withheld it for two major reasons. 1:  I fear of getting those irritating comments about how my son will obviously have no friends and be socially retarded. And 2: If it turns out horribly and I have to hang my head in shame and put him back in public school, I will have that many fewer people giving me the “I told you so’s”… in which case I will have to physically hurt them. Even if they are related to me. My gut tells me that it’s right, that this is going to be great for my son. He can learn at his own pace, and develop his own little pet projects, and have MORE time for friends and piano and legos and scouts and everything else that he does and loves that have nothing to do with “school”.

And no, I am not a hippie.

No, we do not live on a compound or have a large cache of weapons.

I’m just trying to do what I think will be good for him. But alas, all the good gut feelings in the world can’t stop the freak-out that is mounting in my brain. Next Wednesday morning I am going to sit down at the kitchen computer desk with my son and embark on the most insane journey of my life thus far. Perhaps I am being dramatic, but it sure as hell feels legit.

Wednesday morning I may puke on the kitchen computer desk. That would really engrave the memory in my son’s mind of the day his mom summoned all her courage and became a puking lunatic…

All in the name of giving him the gift of learning.

My sister, Sam, over at The Wonderfully Boring World of the Planters is having a birthday today. Please stop by her blog to leave her a nice little shout out.

I had delusions of grandeur about how I was going to do a post with all kinds of pictures of her (and I went to our mom’s and borrowed a bunch of pics from our grandma, who is the family picture taker/cropper/keeper) but my stupid copier/scanner/printer/fax is not working. I am mad. And swearing. My children’s ears are on fire. But I vow to you that there WILL be freakin stinkin cute childhood photos of my sister up by this afternoon…

this I vow…

anyhoo.

Happy Birthday, Sam!

———-continuation————

Okay… here is one picture of the adorable Sam. Why is it horrible resolution, you ask? Because my copier/scanner/printer/fax is still being stupid, so I literally took a picture of the picture. I know. I’m a moron. Anyhoo, without further ado, Sammy Lynn:

Jachin has been waiting ALL summer, and saving his money for WEEKS, anxiously anticipating the release of the new Bionicle Mahri’s. He checked the Lego site each day, being promised over and over “Coming This Summer!”.  Well, folks, it’s nearly the end of summer, and he’s been dying, his faith in the sacred Lego corporation waning. And then three days ago it happened. We were in Target and he checked the toy section, as he does every time we enter Target’s doors… and there they were. The blessed Mahri’s.

He was still a couple of bucks short, so he got up early the very next morning to do all of his chores in order to collect his allowance a day early. He was precious. The tub sparkled. The toilet bowl sparkled. There wasn’t a speck of trash in any trashcan in the house. His bedroom floor was sort of clean… everything was pushed against the walls so that he could do a quick vacuum and I would no longer fear of breaking my ankle while walking through his room in the dark. He earned his money. For real.

So tonight we went back to Target. We went straight to the Mahri’s. He looked them all over for some time. He lined them up and looked at them side-by-side. He turned them around backwards and lined them up and compared all of the specs listed on the back of each container. He’d been waiting all summer. This was a huge decision. I was patient. Ultimately he picked the black one, Toa Nuparu.

I had to get a few other items while we were there, one of them being a new shade of lip gloss. He followed me through the store, staring at Nuparu’s box, walking into clothing racks. I walked into the makeup section and stared. I began pulling out lip glosses at random. I am horrible at picking out lip colors. I don’t know why. But every lipstick and tube of lip gloss I own is all wrong. And the tiny colored squares on the displays are useless. “Coral Fantasy”, when put on your lips, does not look like the small “Coral Fantasy” square. I pulled one out and held the tube next to my lips and puckered.

“How does this look?”

 Jachin briefly looked up from his toy and said in a very non-excited voice, ”That one’s great.”

I wasn’t convinced. I held up a different one and puckered. “How about this one?”

He looked up and tried to sound an eensy bit more enthusiastic. “Oh, my. Yes. That one makes you look even more blushingly beautiful.”

He was ready to go. He had his precious Mahri. He wanted to get the heck out of Dodge.

I threw “Peaches and Gleam” in the cart and wheeled it out of there. My son had a Bionicle to build.

Oh… and yeah, of course, Peaches and Gleam looks like crap on me. But Toa Nuparu is sweeeeeeet.

 This is NOT the new one… but nonetheless a ruthless one. It attacked me in the car without provocation. Who has the gnarlier feet?

Yesterday I did two things: I made plans with my sweet (and adorably prego) friend, Heidi, for a girls’ night out, and I called our old builder to reserve his “bobcat” for the weekend… because we’ve been moved in here since October and our yard is still a freakin dirt mound. Jon had decided to take off work Friday for some serious yard work and we needed a bobcat. So I got the bobcat all scheduled and it was to be delivered here this morning. But our builder said that there was a slight chance that he’d be able to get it delivered that evening (last night). Telling Jon this, he said to me, “Well, if the bobcat gets here tonight, I won’t be able to watch the kids for you to go out.” I was a little ticked off cuz it had been a couple weeks since my last no-children-night-out. But I figured that the chance was very slim that the bobcat would actually be delivered early, so I dropped it with a “well, we’ll see what happens”. Heidi and I were going to see Harry Potter (finally) which started at 7 sharp. At 6:30, it was looking good –no bobcat– and I grabbed my purse and keys and headed down the hall to the garage. As I put the garage door up, behold: the bobcat was being delivered to our front yard. *Crap!* Jon walked out the front door as I walked out through the open garage. He yelled to me, “Yeah, I thought it might not work out for you tonight.” I plugged my ears and gave the old “La La La, I can’t hear you! Bye! Smooches for everyone!” and drove away as quickly as I could.

Harry Potter was great. My evening was relaxing and peaceful (except for the parts when I jumped ‘cuz I was scared for Harry’s well-being). There were no screaming, fighting, whining children to speak of, and I ate my weight in licorice and chocolate. It was lovely. When I got home the children were alive, nothing horrible had happened, and the bobcat was parked in the backyard, meaning that Jon had figured out how to start it and drive it forward. Everything was peachy.

This morning at 6:45, big piles of top soil were delivered and the work had to actually begin. I had my night of rest and rejuvenation. Now it was time to work, people.

Here is me working:

Yes sir, that is me driving a bobcat. Didn’t know I could operate one? Neither did I, but it turns out that I ROCK AT IT! I even figured out how to dump a pile and then go back over it and smooth it out with the bottom of the bucket. And please note: our fence in the background is still standing. Not plowed over. Because, like I said, I ROCK AT THE BOBCAT! When the dirt was gone, I wanted more dirt to move around. I want one! Like a toy. I could put the kids in the bucket and go to Target. Anyway, enough about how sweet the bobcat is and how sweet I am at operating it… The really big news is that our yard may actually be finished soon. In, like, a week, if we haul A. I think we can get it done really quickly if I can put the shrubs and stuff in the bobcat and haul it around to the back yard. Things go a lot faster when you do them with a bobcat…

(did I mention I want one? To keep!!)

This morning Jachin got to pick from his “good behavior basket”. He picked out a soda powered clock that I picked up at Target in the clearance toy section for $3.28. He got it all built and juiced (that’s Diet Coke on the left and lemon juice on the right) and hooked the contacts all in the right places and… voila!

He did have to “borrow” 2 ounces of his mother’s Diet Coke to get it going. His mother growled and paced the kitchen, mouth foaming, as he cautiously reached across the counter for the can. No sudden movements. Real easy like. Mama’s growls eventually subsided. He tamed the beast with a hug and a smooch.

Mission accomplished (limbs intact)!

I finally wrote an entry for Leslie’s Haiku Buckaroo contest. I wrote it in honor of bra shopping, since I know you guys haven’t stopped thinking about that. Oh… what’s that? You HAVE stopped thinking about it? Well, then let’s just rehash for a moment. Bras: revisited… in 17 syllables.

Bra Shopping

Squeaking, pinching. Wrong.

Underwires: things of evil.

Time for some new bras.