no fun mom

The kids were told today that we will be taking them to Six Flags tomorrow. They erupted in cheers and dares on who would ride what roller coaster and who would be chicken. We are currently the best parents...ever!

Until they eat lunch.

We will walk by all the delicious smelling chicken tenders, funnel cakes, oozy cheesy pizza and 1239 flavors of soda all morning and then return to our car for lunch. See, I finally caved into my weight gaining, all-time-high-self and rejoined weight watchers; poor kids are just along for the ride.

On the menu for lunch in the parking lot:

Whole wheat crackers with herb cream cheese
various sliced meats and cheese

Light string cheese

Carrots, cucumbers and ranch
pretzels

apple

and water

Oh my mouth is salivating already... *sigh*

I can do this, I can do this.

Is it bad that I know McDonald's ice cream is low fat and only $1 to boot, so I've already planned the "drive home" menu?

the end of kindergarten

Recently we attended the end of the year program for Claire. They didn't dress the kids up in cap and gowns for the traditional kindergarten graduation but this program was very cute. The kids sang several songs (we now know why she loves the song "My Country Tis of Thee") and then went through the class showing their picture and saying what they want to be when they grow up. Imagine our surprise when Claire said she wanted to be a doctor; what about all that medical anxiety?!

Here is Claire with her teacher who has been amazing and helped Claire adjust with so much patience and understanding.

On the last day of school we pulled into the driveway and as I was helping the kids out of the car I look back and see Claire crying, big crocodile tears running down her face. I asked her what was wrong and she was able to sniff out a "Ms. V..." She doesn't understand yet that Ms. V will get new kindergartners and she will be OK in a new classroom with a new teacher. I anticipate the first week of school to be a bit rough but hopefully nothing like the very first week of kindergarten a couple of months ago.

These two girls are a couple of Claire's friends; we hear their names the most. She is such a social butterfly and loves having fun with her friends.
One of her friends "N" asked me on a recent field trip "does anyone in China have blond hair?" I told her no, mostly everyone has black hair and she said "so is that why Claire loves my hair?" I had to laugh because if a blond haired person visits China you will nearly be assaulted; everyone wants to touch blond hair and have their picture taken with blond haired people.
Claire has become very aware of the American flag; so much so that she points it out every time she sees it. Do you realize how many American flags are flying just on a simple drive to school? We cannot say our country isn't patriotic if you base it solely on number of American flags flying! Claire tells us that she likes the China flag and the American flag and we always tell her that we like them both too. One day she made this picture for me to scan and email to her foster family showing both of the families she loves.

Not Me! Monday

This was supposed to be posted on Monday; I wrote it, saved it and then tried to publish it for 3 days but Blogger decided it didn't like the color of my space bar or something else totally ridiculous and refused to let me make any postings. So, here we are posting Not Me! Monday on Tuesday evening.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
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It was not my child who thought it would be funny to switch the splenda and salt containers from their normal resting places to try and trick me when making my morning coffee. And it was definitely not me who ignored all signs that my spoon full of splenda seemed heavier and quite dense but then dunked into my morning coffee anyway. After I took a nice big swig of coffee I most certainly did not spray it all over the sink and surrounding countertop because that would make a tremendous mess; nope, not me.

One warm evening Matthew played outside and came in drenched in sweat. When he ignored my instructions of showering before bed I made sure he clearly understood he must shower in the morning before school. Of course, it was not my kid who blew me off again as I was crazy hurried trying to get everyone off to school and field trips and get Matthew to the allergist on time. While sitting in the waiting room I smelled something not so pleasant and promptly leaned over to sniff the top of my young son's head. Yep, my suspicions were confirmed; he didn't shower as told. So after getting into a room and passing the nurse's exam there is no way I would have my son bend his head over an exam room sink and proceed to wash his hair with hand soap (hey, it was even moisturizing!) and then dry him with paper towels. Good thing the doctor took 3 hours to get us out of there, otherwise Matthew might have gone to school with wet hair. You know, if I did do something like that.