April's Starting Big

I hate to resort to a bulleted list, but there has to be some way to impose order on the chaos of topics at hand, and I refuse to take the high road, a.k.a., editing myself. So, here goes:

- Sportimint Club: What is the Sportimint Club, you ask? What does Sportimint even mean? Naomi and Muriel have formed a club. The clubhouse is their room. There is a sign on the door, made by Naomi. There is a secret knock to get in (which I will not reveal, though I am lucky enough to know it). Other than that, people, I am as in the dark as you are. I *think* it's some amalgam of sports and experiments? Or something? Who knows.

- Little fish: Naomi passed her first round of swim lessons and was presented with a pink cardstock skill assessment and a piece of Laffy Taffy in a ziploc bag. My heart swelled with pride. More so when she shared the Laffy Taffy with her sister with no admonishment from me.

- Other little fish: I watched Ponyo with the girls on Friday night. It is a weird, delightful movie. Of course the girls' favorite part was the beautiful sea goddess (or whoever she was), Ponyo's mother. Those girls are a little predictable.

- Bagels: The first time I tried to make bagels (after declaring my intentions here), the dough was too goopy, and I gave up. I tried again this past Saturday, with semi-success. The process was fun, but the bagels browned too quickly and were not all that tasty. They were good enough to convey some cream cheese and smoked salmon to their final resting places, at least. I will try again, for sure.

- Egg Hunt! We were just late enough to the Easter Egg Hunt at church that we managed to miss all the chaotic coloring and egg hop and whatnot, and get straight to the egg hunting part. For the tinies, this process is much less hunting and much more gathering, so they just walked from room to room and harvested ten eggs (the limit). Fortunately, this year, there were no florescent permanent ink stamps for Muriel to decorate her face with.

- Five Miles: Also Saturday, I ran five and a half miles! Woo! Is this a good time to mention (did I already mention?) that Jim and I are half-planning to run a half-marathon in November? Of course, five miles is not even half-way there, but still, a long run for me.

- Cold water: Saturday night there was a loud noise in the basement, and since I had just been down there fetching up Easter basket supplies, Jim assumed I had knocked something over. But no, it was the hot water heater blowing a something or other. There was a fear-inducing burning smell and a little leakage. So now, NO HOT WATER. Which means, as it turns out, NO DISHWASHER. I never knew how keenly I loved my dishwasher, also, until I spent the whole afternoon cleaning up our breakfast dishes. Bleah!

- Mom of the Year: Only a truly awesome mom would be clever enough to enclose her two-year-old, AND her bag of Easter candy, in her room for a nap. I was so happy to hear how quiet it was for twenty minutes, and then Muriel emerged, a big ring of chocolate around her mouth. I said, did you eat your candy? And she said, just a little bit. Ha! She had eaten about two-thirds of her chocolate bunny and had somehow made a little hole in the carrot-shaped bag of orange Reeses Pieces. The worst part, of course, is that I couldn't act mad at her because I was laughing too hard, and I couldn't even really BE mad at her, because I am the dummy who left her chocolate in there in the first place. Naomi, even at two and a half, would never have helped herself that way, and thinking about that somehow makes me love both of them even more. They are so Naomi and Muriel, respectively. Hee.

This will be a hectic week, as we are leaving town halfway through for a more Vitamin D-friendly destination. More on that later... have a lovely week!

LATE BREAKING NEWS~ Jim had someone come and fix the water heater today. I am listening to the dishwasher whirring away in the kitchen. Happy!