Yellow Wallpaper

Only three more days are left in April, which means that it's less than a week until my birthday and only a month until Little Dude's. Even more importantly, the kids only have 5 weeks of school left before summer break. Unfortunately our favorite babysitter from the last two summers won't be available because she has an internship she has to complete, so I've to start looking for someone new. I've only got about 2 weeks of school left and am happily looking forward to a little break. I am taking a class over the summer but it doesn't start until June 1st. April and May always end up being such a busy time; it seems like all the programs and recitals and things end up happening during these months. I'm just looking forward to summer vacation so I don't have to drag everyone out of bed and hustle them all out the door every morning.  Tonight as Little Dude was going to bed, he told me "I'm tired of parties". I don't blame him--he's...

The kids had their Spring Break this past week. One of the hard things about being a working parent is the fact that when the kids have days off from school, you have to figure out what to do with them. One of us, or both of us, usually has to take time off work to take care of them; thankfully Mr. Fob has a flexible job so sometimes he doesn't even take time off and just has them hang out with him. Last year for Spring Break I took off part of the week and the kids and I went to Las Vegas to visit my parents. The year before that Mr. Fob took the older two to Disneyland, but left P. Bibby here because she was barely two years old. This year's Spring Break has been highly anticipated by everyone for several months. Mr. Fob took the week off work and drove all three kids down to California to spend a few days at Legoland.  It was a weird week for me--the first time I've ever had all three kids gone for such a long period of time. Their dad picked them up last Sunday evenin...

Most of the books I read this month were Whitney finalists, but I did manage to sneak in a few other books as well. I, Spy and Spy for a Spy by Jordan McCollum I decided to review these two books together, since they are pretty similar and one is just a sequel to the other. There were some things I really liked about the books--they were fun to read, the pacing was good, even towards the end with the final chase scenes, and the setting was unique. I didn't like the voice very much, but I think that was mostly just my personal preference. I don't like first-person that is overly familiar and sounds too much like someone just telling me a story; it tends to get annoying, especially after reading two-books' worth of it. I also had a hard time with the characterization of the protagonist; she often alluded to things in her back story that might have made some of her actions make sense, but I just got frustrated when more wasn't explained. The Impossible Knife of ...

I briefly mentioned in last week's post that Little Dude had been sick with strep throat and that last Sunday S-Boogie wasn't feeling very good either. Unfortunately she did not sleep well on Sunday night and woke up with a fever Monday morning. I decided to take a sick day from work (so grateful for a job with good benefits), dropped P-Bibby off for the morning with her babysitter, and took S-Boogie in to the doctor for a strep test. It was positive. We stopped by Target to fill the prescription and grab a few things, then came home to spend the rest of the day resting.  This would have all been fairly normal and routine, but Monday was the day for the last two performances of the musical that she had been working on for nearly three months. They had a matinee and an evening performance; this was also the day for cast photos and professional videotaping of the show. I had planned to take the afternoon off work to watch the show with Little Dude and P. Bibby. It was the worst ...