Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Today, Donna and I took the kids to the Children's Museum in Providence. Ugh. That's all I have to say. I'm sure that if you check www.dd4cottage.blogspot.com , Donna will say that it was wonderful. One of the traits that I most admire in Donna is her ability to enjoy herself under any circumstances. I really wish that I could relax and enjoy life as much as she does. Really. Truly. First of all, we didn't know that this is "spring break" week for the RI public school system. I assumed (when am I going to learn to stop doing that?) that because we were going on a Tueday in the middle of April, there wouldn't be too many kids there. Wrong. There were approximately 5,325 kids there, many of whom were in the 10-13 age range--in other words, way, way too old to be at a museum where the majority of the clientele is still in Pampers. We got kind of spoiled by the Children's Museum in Boston. It is very large and spacious. There is plenty of room ...

We sold our house on Sunday! I can't believe how quickly it moved...well, after our tenants moved out. We had had it on the market for a little while, but found out that our tenants weren't being, well, exactly accomodating to showings and such. They were kind enough to break their lease and move out early, though, so I'm not going to badmouth them. They left the house in good shape and didn't cause us any problems. Anyway, the tenants left on March 31st, we had an open house this past Saturday, and our realtor called on Sunday with the good news. We had gotten a couple of offers, but they were just way too low, almost insultingly so...the new buyers made us a very fair offer and we jumped at it. Thank goodness we don't have to worry about the house anymore and can focus on buying a home at our next duty station. Where that is, is anyone's guess. We don't know and won't know until probably some time this summer. Emphasis on the probably, as somet...

A very lofty sounding title, eh? Annika and I are back from our first "Girls Only" trip. It went pretty well. We dropped Josiah off at school promptly at 9:12 a.m. I can never seem to get him there right at 9:00 a.m. Why? I am the most organized person in the world. I had everything set out and ready to go last night. Anyway, had him there at a little after 9:00, checked in with his teachers and the center director, who all agree that Josiah is definitely ready to start preschool. So for the next two weeks, he will spend some time in the toddler classroom and some time in the preschool classroom. He gets bumped up in about three weeks, when he'll start going part-time for two days per week. Not to digress (you know I hardly ever do), but I just finished reading a book called "The Power of Play" by some psychiatrist. It was very interesting, about how play for children isn't very spontaneous anymore. It's all organized in classrooms, playgroup...

Annika has been doing a couple of things lately that are blog-worthy. First, she has started to sing. Josiah and I sing the "ABC Song" and "Twinkle, Twinkle" around 4,632 times per day. Just last week, I was surprised to hear Annika singing the first line. She doesn't sing words, just says "la", but she can carry a good tune for a 13-1/2 month old. It is definitely recognizable. (For those of you who don't know, the "ABC Song" and "Twinkle, Twinkle" are the same song . And if you're saying "Well, duh Rachel!", consider this: Hans just figured this out . And we all know who smart Hans is, right?) Second. Last night I came home from a long walk with Josiah. Annika had learned a new trick while I was gone. She has a little zebra figure. Hans said "Tell Mommy what the zebra says" and Annika whinnied like a horse. I guess we're assuming that zebras, being from the equine family, whinny like a ...

Hans has been suggesting for a very long time that I blog about the children's programming that we are forced to watch. Every. Single. Day. Some of it is better than others. Some of it is actually tolerable to an adult and a child. Here is our regular morning lineup: 1) Maisy 2) 64 Zoo Lane 3) Higglytown Heroes 4) Little Einsteins 5) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 6) Charlie & Lola Each of these lasts half an hour. That's right. Do the math and you'll see that my kids spend around two hours watching cartoons every morning. We only watch Maisy if we get up very early, and we watch Charlie & Lola at 10:30 or 11:00 after we've had a break for baths, getting dressed, picking up Legos, making beds, re-picking up Legos and brushing our teeth. The truth is that we have purposely steered our children towards loving these particular cartoons, because we can stand them. Maisy is a very simple cartoon, full of bright colors and not a whole lot of action. It is narr...