Utter Chaos

Yesterday we had a karate birthday party for Griffin.  We had a great time and got to see lots of family and friends.  Unfortunately we forgot the battery for our camera, if anyone wants to send pictures we’d be much obliged. 

Today we saw a cheap catamaran for sale on Craig’s list and called the owner to see if we could take a look at it.  He lives about 30 miles southeast of us near Lake Koshkonong, which until today we didn’t know existed.  We reached the address he had given us and went down a long lane, past several “No Trespassing” signs and a fence with a skull on it.  We arrived at a barnyard filled with sailboats and poultry.   Griffin wasted no time looking at the boat, instead following around the chickens and ducks and geese and gathering feathers of all colors.  It didn’t take us long to realize we didn’t want to put in the amount of repair work the catamaran would require .  The owner didn’t seem to mind, and we hung out for quite a while talking about sailing and chickens.  He gets his poultry in some sort of grab bag deal where he gets some of everything and doesn’t know what they’ll be until they hatch.  He got out some corn so Griffin could feed them and then invited Griffin in to the coop and let him gather a dozen eggs to take with him.  Afterwards we stopped at Fins Bar & Grill for lunch which seemed sort of like a biker bar with a beach and good live music.  It wasn’t what we were expecting but it made for an unforgettable day.

Then tonight we did something Griffin has been waiting for for years.  He is obsessed with Star Wars.  Plays Star Wars, reads about Star Wars, asks us questions like “Why did Darth Vadar turn to the dark side?”  He is this obsessed without ever having  seen Star Wars.  A long time ago we told him he could see Star Wars when he turned five, and on Monday he turned five.  Tonight we watched “Episode IV A New Hope” with him.  Because of the obsession he already knew most of the story and all of the characters.  Watching his face was as good as seeing it for the first time again ourselves.

[ flickr photo set + movies ]

…from tonight. A couple of deer wandered through our front yard, 1st one snacked on Candace’s vegetable garden. Me ‘n’ G went out to investigate (taking a well needed break from reading before bed).

We’ll see if i can start posting a bit more regularly.

What’s been up lately… recovering from being sick… busy weekend last weekend, and fun as we had Candace back from school oblivion.

Saturday was Pants for Pennies @ Woodland at 8am, Karate 9:30, a house-warming gig in the afternoon.

On Sunday I replaced 2 10ft strips of facia lining the roof by hanging out a top window tied to the house with a rock climbing harness. Candace pressure washed the garage. Griffin and I hit up a carnival, where I got nauseous on the rides (ok, i’m officially old).

Finally got back to soccer on Monday.

Watched the hilariously funny season 2 of The Guild on Wednesday.

Get to go see Sarah Benck on Friday.

Yesterday we had a parent/teacher conference at Griffin’s preschool.  Griffin’s teacher has been his teacher for the past two years and she’s exactly what you want a Montessori teacher to be.  She notices everything about the children and creates a very peaceful and calm environment for the kids.  She’s also no-nonsense, expects everyone to know the rules, and nothing gets past her.  She’s a little bit stern.  So we were surprised when she realized this would be her last parent/teacher conference with us and she started to tear up.  She said “The first thing I will always remember about Griffin is that he is so kind” and then it was all over and I had to fight back tears, too.  She talked about how Griffin loves to help younger kids and how other kids come to him for help with puzzles.  She talked about how he loves the sensorial materials but the art materials, not so much.  She talked about what a good friend he is.  She talked about how far his language skills and confidence have come since he started preschool.  I’m so grateful that Griffin’s first teacher was someone who really knows and cares about him.

Griffin has his kindergarten screening today, but we’re expecting this to feel momentous so we’re braced for it.

The lack of blogging will probably continue for another two weeks, I’m taking another class at the UW and have a homework, a final, a coding project, and an 8-12 page paper all before May 14th.  I decided this is the last class I’ll be taking.  The material is so interesting but this is taking too much of a toll on my stress levels and in time not spent with my family.

It was only this week that I finally cracked and forced Griffin under duress to suffer varietas in contrast to “Hey Mama” ad infinitum absurdum. He quickly latched on to a new favorite, and now we have DJ Shadow’s “Six Days” remix on endless loop:

Last weekend was loads of fun… Griffin had the day off school on Friday, so Thursday afternoon Candace and G headed out to the cabin. Along the way they played a ripping game of Tekken, and later enjoyed the artistic choreography of Jackie Chan’s First Strike. In spite of all the Kung Fu action, it was actually a really peaceful retreat to the natural beauty of the Mississippi riverside. Unfortunately Griffin’s weeks old ear infection returned, and they cut the visit a few hours short on Friday for a visit to the doc.

Griffin and I had our typical Saturday adventure:

• Karate in the morning.
• Running into the usual suspects at Kids in the Rotunda where G was chosen to volunteer on stage and perform maskcapades in front of the whole audience. It was awesome!
• Afterwards we partook of fine cuisine (Taco Bell) with said usual suspects. Then it was on to the Children’s Museum, followed by a waffle cone and home.

That night I snuck out to meet a friend and see Brett Dennen at the Majestic. Awesome show!

The fun didn’t let up on Sunday, when we hit up the dinosaurs and Titanic exhibits at the Milwaukee Public Museum along with Candace’s college buds and their awesome toddler son.

From Cousins

From left to right that’s Eve, Theron, Griffin, Gabrielle, Gavin, Megan, Elise, and Landon.

[ photo set ]

After a few months of Karate, Griffin had the opportunity to test on Friday night and advance from Ninja white belt to gold belt. Kids test up through the colors as Ninjas before gaining admittance to the adult lessons. He did very well, and unequivocally earned the advancement.

We celebrated with late night partying at Chuck E. Cheese.

Saturday morning we braved a blizzard and hit up our first lesson as a gold belt, before returning home and having a great snowed-in day at home together. Over 6 inches fell in our first major storm in ages. Until this weekend, everyone was convinced spring had settled in.

Sunday we got to attend cousin Gabrielle’s baptism (thank you snow blower!), and then spent the afternoon constructing and zipping down a sled run in our yard.

I’m still enthralled with the new Corolla. It’s a pleasure to drive, and the lack of all-wheel drive has been nearly a none-issue.

In the last few weeks Griffin’s begun emerging from his room on his own in the mornings. This is a new development, as the house has been a bit too spooky until now to make a solo start to the day. It’s a joy on weekends to have him sneak on over and pounce on our bed.

A few people tagged me with this on facebook, and I’ve really enjoyed reading their lists.  So:

1. My first job was a paper route.
2. I’ve been a morning person ever since.
3. I once worked as an usher for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
4. When I went to college I wanted to be an architect. The teacher in my first architecture class made us call rulers “personal measuring devices”. I still have a model of the house from that class in our basement. Sometimes I drive around and look at the prairie style houses in the neighborhood where I work.
5. Everyone I knew before 1993 calls me Candy, everyone since then calls me Candace.
6. If I’m alone in the car I’m listening to NPR, either on the radio or I’m listening to podcasts of This American Life. 
7. I get the hiccups every time I eat bread.
8. I love doing my income taxes.
9. My first car was a Mazda Miata that I had for 10 years. I didn’t learn to drive a manual transmission car until after the Miata.
10. I’m working on being able to do a chin-up.
11. Julian and I have freakishly identical handwriting.
12. I read cookbooks from cover to cover.  I have so many cookbooks that even if I never buy another one I couldn’t make all the recipes.
13. I’ve never lived alone.
14. I would write software even if I didn’t get paid to do it.
15. I was vegetarian for 20 years, I’m not now. I would still love to start a vegetarian restaurant in Madison.
16. And a book store.
17. I love the ocean but am terrified of a) sharks and b) tidal waves.
18. I was homesick for years after leaving Wisconsin. Now I’m homesick for California.
19. I can’t remember the multiplication tables above 5. I have to do the math in my head. 7 * 8 = (7 * 10) - (7 * 2). I didn’t memorize this in the third grade and can’t seem to memorize it now.
20. I have three younger sisters.
21. I feel responsible for everything.
22. I was lucky enough to travel when I was younger. Roughly in order to Mexico, Israel, England, Germany, France, Costa Rica, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and China. I really, really want to go to India.
23. I just learned that I really like perfume.
24. I had no idea how hard it would be to raise a kid.
25. I had no idea how great it would be to raise a kid.

Currently on infinite repeat on the way to preschool:

Sarah took care of Griffin every morning when I first went back to work.  She’s awesome, as is her fiance/husband Rodolfo.  They took care of Griffin so we could see a movie a few weeks ago, and they sent me these pictures.  When you see Griffin hamming it up whenever a camera comes out?  Yeah, he didn’t learn that from me =) 

Griffin mania!

Griffinmania!We’re just insanely lucky to have these two as babysitters.

[ Make your own ]