Tidbits: Yay

• Hello, 2011! This year is off to a lovely start. The offspring are all back in school, but my mister had one more day off today. This was brilliant, and we should try to schedule this sort of thing on purpose in the future. It's a welcome change to hug the man without Middle Child informing us that we should, "Get a room! Ew." Really. We have a room. In fact, she lives in the string of rooms we call our house. So there.
• Green Girl's January Giveaway has resulted in the likelihood that I will be getting to know the mail lady better. GG's posts last week offered a combination of homemade goodies for her giveaway. The trifecta of mitts, raspberry jam, good-for-you granola will be headed this way, and the anticipation is entirely enjoyable. Last week's comments on her posts were, ah, well, mostly about the giveaway goodies. See, I can focus when it's really important.
• The list of Stuff to Take to Honduras is starting to form. The pile of stuff on my dining room table is also forming in response. Hopefully, we will be carrying audio Bibles in Miskito, dehydrated vegetables to supplement our friends' diets, a DS charger and styluses for a friend of Middle Child's, and the fourth season of the t.v. show Seventh Heaven. One can only imagine what else will be added on to the packing list in the weeks to come.
• Firefly is on Ovation tonight. Who would've thought a Western Space epic would be a good idea? Only Joss Whedon.

Priorities

Pretzels... only better.

Because I have discovered a distinct inability to do it all, I asked the family to please indicate just what specifically was most important about Christmas tradition/celebration/revelry/expectations so that I could prioritize appropriately.  Little Bit's unequivocal statement was "baking and making treats," followed by a request for chocolate-dipped pretzels.

My mister steered me down the baking, candy, and chip aisles at Super Store to toss bags of white and milk chocolate chips, Starlight mints, and regular M&M's in the cart along with a bag of great big pretzels. My inner Grinch grumbled about how we could have picked up the conveniently prepackaged M&M variety that already had a pretzel inside and a package of peppermint bark with similar results, less cost, and way less mess.
Back at home, the makings out on the counter, I called the girls to the kitchen saying I needed some help. They actually showed up despite the likelihood that chores would be involved with such a summons. Those two were instantly certain of what the particular ingredients laying on the counter signaled.
As "The Nutcracker" played on the living room t.v., we melted the chocolate in small batches. The girls were delighted to take a hammer to ziploc bags of candies to produce the finely crushed consistency needed for adorning our chocolaty treats. The mess-making commenced even as Herr Drosselmeier was tossing the wooden nutcracker offstage so he could pop back up on stage as a real boy complete with tights and poufy hair. The task went quickly, and we had a line-up of pretty munchies before the herd of dancing snowflakes could fill the screen with their whirling tutus.

Exploring

It's Friday. The Boy's last day of Summer School for Art IA. The girls have opted not to get out of bed, and the mister and I are headed out to steal a little couple time. That's not been an easy feat in the past few weeks with the combined schedules of our household, and we are both looking forward to staring deeply into one another's eyes over coffee cups without the words, "Mom," or "Dad," punctuating the conversation. Okay, so maybe the soulful looks are beyond either of us the week before Staycation begins, but it is still entirely desired to be alone together. Hopefully, the school will not call while we are off making goo-goo eyes at one another.
Because there is a call coming. Yesterday, due to PSAT testing, the students were restricted during their break from their usual haunt (the cafeteria). So, our kid went "exploring" with "the guys" upstairs. The exploration led to the teachers' lounge (a place students should not be) where a soda was removed from the fridge (that ought to be free from the predations of students) and used for some sort of idiotic game before supposedly being returned to the fridge. The Remover was my kid. Uh-oh. He says he returned the drink, but it was missing later, and the whole world saw him out playing with it. Oh.but.no. So. He was kept after school yesterday in the determination of his guilt, and the consequences will come today.
The consequences at home will likely be mitigated if we don't hear about the consequences at school during Date Day. In the meantime, I am periodically calling the kid, "Dora" and have him explore a list of additional chores available to keep him busy and out of trouble.

Reception

The t.v. in the living room is all-Disney, all the time. Even when the kids are out, the living room screen only ever flashes Disney images. The t.v. is connected to the receiver. The receiver controls the channel reception. The remote controls the receiver that controls the channel reception on the t.v. The remote has disappeared.
It's been gone since late July. The mister and I figured it would turn up eventually. The idea of morning programming like "Handy Manny" aimed at the pre-K set would surely serve as a motivating factor in producing the missing remote. (Nope. They watch the pre-K programming and offer their critiques. Oy.) Except it seems to be truly gone. Evacuated or evaporated, but gone nonetheless. While there are merciful moments when the children gather in the master bedroom (like catching the final episode of "The Next Food Network Star") to view the other hundred channels at our disposal, they are largely stuck reaping the Disneyfied moments that their carelessness with the almighty remote has sown. Eventually, the mister will order a new remote. Until then, let's all be thankful this is not a Nielson household.

Changes

As we pile in the car, the conversation turns to Sesame Street.

Middle Child: Did you know they made Elmo blue?
The Mister: Blue Elmo is called "Grover".
Little Bit: You mean they even changed his name?!

Talk Show

Middle Child asked to go home with a friend after school. I would love to be a fly on the wall at that house. The mom was a bikini model, and now she doesn't have to cook. (I have never quite figured out what one had to do with the other.) Apparently they will be doing science experiments to determine whether or not ice cream can be lit on fire. My house will never, never be that cool. (Because I prefer to eat the ice cream which eliminates both the bikini and the opportunity to commit frozen treat sacrilege.) Anywho. Middle child stayed until time for her sister to be at choir. And then she was busy doing the stuff normally done after school.
At ninish, the child sauntered into the master bedroom where I was tucked up in bed with a heart-shaped box of chocolates watching the fictions of reality t.v. play out on the small screen. She informs me that the amongst the girlies coming for tonight's 80's Dance Sleepover there are those who don't really like pizza and one with an allergy to wheat. Which would be fine if I had not already been to the grocery store to stock up on Middle Child's favorites from pizza to cheez-its to frozen waffles for her sleepover. All of which contain what? Yes, Gentle Mommies, "wheat" is the correct answer to today's rhetorical question. I glare through narrowed eyes at Middle Child before informing her that I will deal with this tomorrow. (Besides, if she doesn't leave soon, my chocolates might start to get squishy because I stuck 'em under the covers upon her entrance to avoid sharing.) I watch her clear the doorframe before slipping my chocolates back out.
No sooner do I clear the "What do I feed the girls!?" question out of my head to allow the reentry of mindless t.v. chatter, and she's back. (I think she saw the chocolates as I shoved them back under the blanket a bit too slowly.) This time she wants to come up with 80's themed outfits. I point out that I was totally available for this discussion after school when she was hanging out with the bikini-clad, ice-cream-burning Mommie. There is a back-and-forth that does not bear repeating. I finally tell her that I will pick up oversized t-shirts and shoulder pads for her and her friends today. They will have to come up with their own flats, wide belts, and skinny jeans. Mistakenly thinking the topic has been put to rest, I return my attention to the last two minutes of trash t.v. with no clue what is going on anymore. Kate continues to talk at me in the horrifying valley-girl accent that she has picked up since starting middle school. She punctuates her sentences with "like," and "uh,"--- and the mister finally intervenes to send her off to bed. (So I can hide the chocolates back in the closet instead of in our bed.) And turn off the t.v. so we can go to sleep and have nightmares about valley girls.

Picture This

Flying seems to have been a big fixation for da Vinci. I'm more intrigued with the images of his ideas than I am with the ideas themselves. Visual images spur my mind on to new ideas.
There's a TV show called something like "Man... Moment... Machine..." and I am thinking of it as I consider the last couple of days. While visiting Don's parents, we made a trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to check out the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit. Features included artwork, writings, sketches, and working models of some of da Vinci's whatzits. Don's cousins and uncle are big photography buffs, and it was almost as interesting to see what would catch their eyes and the camera lenses as it was to see the tangible genius of da Vinci.I am not an artist like Don's cousins when a camera is placed in my hands. I am more of a historian. The camera documents life and emotion, and I am intrigued by the option to look back over time and savor days that went too quickly and those that seemed to drag on for far too long.

My own love of the preserved photographic image goes back to a wooden cigar box on which my Mom decoupaged photos of herself, my Dad, and I. The box had a clasp that held the lid on, but when it was opened there were piles of photos inside waiting to give glimpses of our lives and the lives of those dear to us. From black and whites showing off my grandparents in younger days to the slightly grainy square 70's shots of my cousins and I playing on a backyard swingset or surrounding a decorated Christmas tree.

A couple of decades later, I love to watch moments, days, and events unfold in images that capture the all-too-brief moments of joy, sorrow, confusion, anticipation... the shot of a newborn's first cry, the scene outside the car window that will always remind one of a trip long past, the frozen image of a flower that bloomed for a day or two, or a summer day...

Lucky Bella

Bella should be thankful that I named her. Don came up with a cat name last night that he just loved. "Nikitty"... which is pronounced "nuh-kitty".This horror-show of a cat name came from him as we were starting to watch the first season of the show La Femme Nikita that ran on USA back in the late 90's. It's a spy show. We watch it at least once every year or two in it's entirety. We blow through seasons 1-5 on DVD. (There was a fairly rabid fan community online when the show was on the air, but we missed out on that so we are our own little rabid fan community.) The program featured cutting edge technology and fashion that in many cases still holds up a decade later. I was a little sad to see that it is beginning to date itself, but we still enjoyed watching the show play out the familiar actions and dialogues last night. Things blow up on the show. Lots of things blow up. Think Alias, but darker and with waaaaaay cooler spies.