Picture Day!

When Random was born we looked at our brand new baby boy with his giant blue hands, gorilla shaped head and male-pattern baldness and had the following conversation: "Holy smokes." "Well, hopefully he'll have a great personality."

Not even a day had gone by, while we were still in shock at the wonder of new parenthood, when we received our first order form for professional pictures. It even had a note addressed to Mommy and Daddy from our brand new baby. "I know you want to share your joy with grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles, doctors and postmen. Please buy some pictures so that I know you love me. If you really really love me I know you'll buy the photo sweatshirt and keyring as well. -Your Baby"

So we bought the photos. They put our child on top of a frightening background, laid an even more frightening vest atop him and snapped pictures while he laid there stunned and bruised.

Here we are, 10 years and 2 kids later. Luckily, they have cutened up a bit since day 2. And, not so luckily, we still get the forms home with the same plea--you love your child and surely want to capture this moment forever. We still get the same frightening background--although now we can choose between a variety of unflattering colors. We still get the same weird scrunched up face--Scout said, "Don't worry Mommy. I smiled my biggest. Like a pirate."

And yet, I still buy them because-- Yes. I love my crazy pirate faced kids and I do want to capture every moment forever. Even the moments with the abnormal head tilt, magenta background and creepy hair slicked down by the overeager PTA volunteers.

Another one of those things to put in the category with double sided wrapping paper, heelies (you know, those wheeled shoes that cost a bajillion bucks that you bought for your kid after all the begging but that he grew out of before he got over his irrational fear of wheeled shoes--feel free to substitute skateboard, blendypens, MioPup, Moon Sand or any other thing that cost a fortune, was imperative that they have and was discarded five minutes later) and ballet classes. In twenty years it probably won't matter but for now you just do the best you can.

The activist inside of me wants to lobby against picture day as an unfair practice of preying on the guilt of parents. The capitalist inside of me wants to figure out how I can hop on this gravy train...if you love your child you would certainly take advantage of this once in a lifetime business opportunity.

And So It Begins

We've had our first fundraiser flier sent home today. This is the first year that I've received 3 opportunities to disappoint my children with my lack of generosity.

I've had neighbor kids knocking at my door asking me to donate so I've gotten to rip their little hearts out and crush their hope as well. I understand that they shouldn't ask strangers since that's a dangerous situation but everyone they know sits next to them in class and went to the same Pep Rally/Fundraiser assembly that they did. Everyone I know either lives far away or has 3-4 other children with the same empty Fun Run donation sheet that I have in triplicate.

Troy is hesitant to take this one to work. It's one of those "Pledge X amount of $$ per lap and collect it later" types. He doesn't want to be hounding his co-workers for money in a couple of weeks when it turns out that Scout can run a 4 minute mile.

I'm glad that at least it's not one of those horrid brochures of junk...you know the ones...where you can buy 3 cubic inches of wrapping paper (double sided don't you worry) for 40 bucks, a box of 7 chocolates for the price of a small country or some random kitchen doo-dad with geese on it for mere dollars a day (on the 16 year payment plan).

So here's my dilemma. The kids have 25 minutes to run as many laps around the high school track as they can. I can pledge money per lap and then feed my kids a huge breakfast of greazy sausage, eggs and chocolate milk hoping for cramp-induced low lappage, I can pledge money per lap and tell them I'll give them each 50 cents to throw the race or...*sigh*...I can pledge a set amount and see the look in their eyes when they realize that they don't qualify for the Grand Prize of a Super Cool Super Soaker.

Maybe I'll get them a piece of cardboard, a sharpie and drop them off at the interstate off-ramp and see how much they can collect...Anything Helps God Bless.

What's a little dignity or integrity if you can win a Super Cool Super Soaker?

Super String Savannah

On Monday Savannah's class started a discussion on science. They talked about what everyone wanted to learn throughout the year and each child picked a special topic to study in depth. Savannah ultimately ended up picking Earth as her field of exploration this year but that wasn't her first choice.

In class she raised her hand and suggested that they study String Theory. When she told us this, Troy and I looked at each other then back at Savannah and beamed with pride. hehehe. The teacher asked her to explain String Theory to the class. She told everyone that some scientists have a theory that all matter is made of tiny strings that are so small we don't have a microscope strong enough to see them. She told them that these strings were smaller than air or germs or even quarks.

As you can imagine, the fact that our 8 year old daughter can even use the word 'quarks' in a sentence is enough to keep us going for weeks but the fact that she wants her 3rd grade class to study String Theory keeps us in happy giggles. I love that a giant poster of the Standard Model of Particle Physics would fit so nicely on the wall of the kids' room next to the Littlest Pet Shop wall stickers and the Gotta Catch 'Em All pokemon pictures. WOOT!

Our family has been following the progress of the Large Hadron Collider for quiet some time, so when this video came out last week, we were really excited. It's so awesomely uber-geeky that I just had to share. Enjoy! :P

First Day!

Random and Savannah both started school on Tuesday. Random is in 5th grade and has the same teacher that he did last year. Savannah is in 3rd grade and has a new teacher but a lot of the same kids in her class...including her best friend Hailey. They had a great first day and looked fabulous in their new outfits.

I was nervous until they came home. I was afraid that I would have forgotten something or their new shoes would give them blisters or a million other things that wouldn't be earth shattering but would have given them a bad day.

Scout's first day is today, Wednesday. They divided the kindergarten class in half so they could have a more intimate first day session and get to know their teacher and the routines a little bit right away. She also looked fabulous and skipped down the sidewalk so eager to get going.

We met up with Hailey and Breanna Wallace so a huge troop of us went off to school over the sidewalk and through the woods. Rand walked ahead and got to school early while the girls giggled and skipped all the way there.

So today is my first day too. My first day with a few hours of no kids at home. gulp.

Summer Memories

Troy and I feel like we've had a whirlwind summer. We've camped, hiked, played, traveled, visited, reunioned, explored and rocked. Now our big fear is that the kids will tramp off to school and, when asked what they did this summer, they will say they ate a lot of candy and played the Wii. So here is our summer sum-up. A brief overview of what we did in the summer of 2008 (in between bouts of eating candy and playing the Wii).



June: Camped in the rain, visited by the Tom-Gomms, Troy got a new CPAP, I got new glasses and bleached my hair white.

July: Drove to Idaho, Scout met Grandma & Grandpa Gomm for the first time, counted satellites with Tom and Kim, launched fireworks with Tyler and Anna, got 5th disease, camped at the ocean, the kids spent 2 weeks with Grandma & Grandpa Bryan, Troy and I went to Singapore.

August: Hiked with the Wallace's, Scout had her 5th birthday, I had my 33rd birthday, got back in touch with long lost high school friends, went to rock concerts, hiked around Mollala State Park, rode on a 6 car ferry, visited cousins, went to the nickel arcade, found the headquarters for Dark Horse Comics, dyed my hair purple.