Tiniest Bit Unlike I Anticipated

What? You don't want to read all week about my fabulous time in Oregon?

Well, I never!

I've been puttering around my house, "recovering" and trying to find some way to bring order back to my home. I'm pretty sure it's a lost cause, so I'm embracing the chaos. But it doesn't matter. My mom will be here in 4 days, all will be well by then. If not by then, soon after. As soon as she has a chance to rest up from the trip up here.

Someone told J last week that he needs to be there on Bo's first day of kindergarten (we both tend to underestimate the importance of some milestones in our lives, and in the lives of our children) so he decided to start making it more of a focus and working to mentally prepare Bo as well. Something that uh....his mom has neglected to do. Sorta.

It's been entertaining at the very least. Saturday as Bo bolted out the door to go swimming with his friends, J called, out, "remember, as much fun as you will have swimming, kindergarten will be 10 times more awesome!"

I think he's good at the life lessons type stuff.

Things That Make Me Say, "Hunh!?":

• At the store on Saturday I saw "Animal Shaped Rubberbands?" What is that? Targeting the brightest of consumers? Of course, there are people who like their stuff to look cute before it's used. I guess that's why there is an industry for printed toilet paper. I'm just not one of them.
• That ridiculous paper plate commercial where the chick says, "I will not be defined by the number of dishes I wash." Again. What is that? Are women really walking around being/feeling defined by the dishes in the sink? Really? I mean, I know I live in Iowa and all, but maybe I need to get out more. I go from being annoyed at its stupidity to being offended by the suggestion. Annoyed and offended Nobody is not a pretty picture.

Things That Have Made Me Laugh Out Loud This Week:

• Anytime Bo says, "Oh and by the way..."
• Anytime Avee pretends to read like Bo. She slowly "sounds out" unintelligible sounds for several long seconds (in which I hope Bo doesn't realize that's how he sometimes sounds) and then blurts out, "BE NICE!" with a huge grin. Or "Twelvedy Seben!"
• Hearing my kids mutter, "Why I oughta..."
• Writing sentences for Bo to read and hear him say aloud, "My name is Bo. I am a gay-nee-us! YEAH! I'm a gay-nee-us! What's a gay-nee-us Mom?" It's genius Bo, genius.
• Hearing J tell Bo he couldn't go running with him unless he had an airplane to fly, because that's the only way he'd be able to keep up.
• Danyo making up sign language signs to get attention. A recurring one is of him "strumming" his forearm. Between that and "more" he thinks he's got the entire language of signing, mastered. That's not even counting how he thinks the sign for "Daddy" is to tap his finger on my forehead instead of his own.
• Avee's recounting of things she does that are naughty that I might not ever even know about otherwise.
  "Mom, I need to tell you somesing in yo eeyoh. I wented downstayohs and I ate all yo gum. Evohwee one. All gone." Complete with proud grin, as though she should win an award for her naughtiness.
• This picture of Avee. She insists on dressing herself, by herself, all the way, all the time, every day. This shirt has an opening on the back.
  
  Her response after putting on this shirt. "What's this hole about, mom?" I love that it wasn't, "What did I do wrong?" Clearly there was a problem with the shirt, not the dresser.
  
  
  
• Bo's response to how he felt about starting kindergarten, "Kind of nohvous, mostly good." I told him it's perfectly fine to feel nervous, that he probably won't feel nervous anymore once he's gone to school and seen how much fun it is to be in kindergarten. He added, "It's pohfectly fine to feel mostly good about it too, Mom."

When talking about the planets with Bo, I joked, "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus," and my niece chimed in (my 15 year old niece who has lived in England for the last 8 years), "Yeah, girls go to Mars to get more bras, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider."
I told her that only worked in England. Over here you just sound slow trying to work that rhyme. Of course, whoever thought of "stupider" probably isn't winning any literary awards.

Bo's writing on this box.

"At ten o'clock, my mom goes to college"

• Avee's version of "Defying Gravity".
  
  
  
  
• This face