Hey!

Are you talking to me?

You can't be serious.

I love when I get this kind of look from my kids. It makes me feel like I'm doing a totally good job as a parent.

Things are good here. It's very cold this week, but we're keeping warm. Or at least we are all keeping warm except for Rob who has yet to buy a winter jacket. I sent Caleb to school in snow pants this morning. Apparently kids here don't wear snow pants to school. Caleb claims he was the only kid in his class to wear them. Even the only kid in the whole school! If he wasn't fashionable, at least he was warm.

Rob worked the night shift last night so I spent all day playing with the girls downstairs. Okay, I didn't play with them all day. There was a sizable rest time in the middle of it where I even grabbed a little bit of a nap. But I did do my share of game playing. Camille and I played a nice long game of Ballerina Barbie and the Pink Pony. I got to be the Pink Pony. The Pink Pony does not talk. The Pink Pony only says "neigh." It's a blast. The next time you come over, be sure to play this fun game with Camille. But be forewarned: She has to be Ballerina Barbie or you can't play the game.

We drew pictures. Chloe and I drew a Christmas tree (one of the few things I can draw capably) and Camille designed a line of clothing for her Barbie doll. I'll have to snap some pictures and put them up here. They were pretty good. She has decided she wants to be a fashion designer. Or a comedienne. Or a comedic fashion designer. The jury is still out on that one.

Caleb had a great day at school. He loves school, which makes me really happy. He played basketball in gym class. Gym is his favorite special of the week. Typically he plans ahead and wears his sweat pants on Thursdays so he is all dressed for gym, but today he realized that all his sweats were in the laundry. Since we were all up before six this morning, I figured I had enough time to throw in a load of laundry before he left for school. I would have. Really. Except that when I lifted the lid after the wash cycle completed, I realized there was still soap in there. Thinking perhaps I had accidentally put in too much soap (although I was sure I just did one scoop of detergent) I ran the washer through quick rinse. When that was finished there were still suds. This time there was also a big pool of water. Needless to say, Caleb did not get to wear sweats to school. He did, however, willingly put on a pair of jeans. For those of you acquainted with Caleb's aversion to buttons (and snaps) this is a major event. Rob's big task for Saturday is to fix the washing machine. Fortunately the house we're renting came with a washing machine so we can use that one until our washer is fixed.

Chloe keeps us on our toes. After weeks of waking up (multiple times) during the night, she finally slept all night again last night. Hopefully that trend will continue. She comes out with the funniest things. She got a little bowling set for Christmas. I set it up for her the other day and was trying to teach her how to bowl. "Roll the ball," I told her. "And knock down the pins." I watched her toss the ball in one direction and knock the pins over with her hands. That's one way to do it, I suppose. Tonight she was very interested in her Jack-in-the-box. She has one of those old fashioned turn-the-crank-so-the-music-can-play-before-Jack-pops-up ones. Today she figured out that instead of turning the crank (which is hard for her) she can just move the latch that holds the top on and Jack will pop up. Hopefully she'll realize it is much more fun to play with when the music plays first.

School is underway now and I have a busy semester ahead of me. My children's literature class should be pretty okay, but I'm also taking a course called Instructional Foundations of the School Library Media Program. It looks to be as interesting as the title implies, requires six expensive text books and a lot more work than I had dared hope there'd be. For that reason - and because the flannel sheets and two layers of down on my bed and my little rice bag foot warmers are calling my name - this rambling blog post is now at an end so I can pretend once again to be a productive person. Goodnight.