Summer Accomplishments, or How I got Nothing Done and Had A Great Time Doing It

I have to be honest, I had an action-packed summer planned, full of pinterest-worthy activities and educational opportunities and tons of other stuff, but it just didn't turn out that way. Life had other plans for me. As of the last week of June, here's what I had planned:

• A Space Camp week, complete with age-appropriate, hands-on activities, adorable snacks (think rocket-shaped fruit pops), and crafts that would make all 3 kids consider becoming astronauts. To be capped off with a trip to liberty science center. (I dedicated a whole entire pinterest board to this, I was so serious)
• Swim lessons every day
• Twice weekly family hikes during which I could teach the kiddies about hiking, orienteering, nature and whatnot
• Trips to local historical points of interest. There are a ton around here.
• Enroll Cua in 3-year-old preschool.
• Summer Reading Program at the Library.
• Sign boys up for soccer.

But guess what we actually did? Well, here's some of it:

• Finished potty training Cua. Finally!
• Went to swim...sometimes. It didn't work out like I had planned. We had some issues that led to me reconsidering preschool for Cua and maybe life in general. He was just not having it, even though Stenni was amazing and a great role model. I'm starting to think that he's just not ready for organized activities, and that's ok. He's got time. But we had fun at the lake anyway.
• Hiked occasionally with no specific itinerary or goal in mind. This was relaxing, and much better than I could have planned. I think the kids got a lot from it. Maybe.
• I won a blue ribbon for these cookies from the state fair (I posted this recipe years ago!). We went to the fair a lot and learned a ton about livestock and agriculture. It was helpful, but hasn't prepared us for all of our chicken-related challenges (see below).
• Lost a few birds to a wild animal of some kind, one outside and one in the coop, within about 12 hours of one another. I'm still not sure what kind of animal did the damage, but I'm guessing it was a fox. But one of the birds was Lemonade, our favorite, who we had raised from about a week old. Some of us are still grieving, hard, and some of us learned a little something about how to shore up a chicken coop a little more thoroughly. Ah, farm life.  
• We actually all did summer reading at the library, and it was amazing! I even joined in this year and read grown-up books. 4 of them!
• Froz started walking! A little late (as in, we already went to the dr, who told us there was nothing wrong, but still started asking around for specialists because he was almost 18 months old late. Dr said he was basically just lazy and big bro and sis did everything for him so he didn't really have to walk), but better than never. We went to the park and played outside a lot to encourage walking and running around.
• I DID NOT sign the boys up for soccer. Maybe I never will. I get the team sports thing, but do the parents really have to suffer? Plus between Cua's absolute refusal to deal with organized activities and the fact that Froz just started walking, I think we'll give it another year (at least).
• Spent a ton of downtime, as I struggled with morning sickness and general exhaustion. Yes, BABY #4 IS ON THE WAY, and I'm more than halfway there at this point. I've used this as an excuse to not get any of my original summer to-do list done.

But now Stenni is back in school, Girl Scouts starts soon, dance starts next week, and everything is getting crazy again. I know that we will eventually fall back into that rhythm for a while, just to be thrown off by Christmas and then a new baby. But it is what it is. I've gotten better at taking things as they come because my plans got torpedoed this summer almost as soon as I made them. I think it worked out better that way.

Magic Mike XXL and my Mother of the Year Award

I recently went with a girlfriend to see the movie Magic Mike XXL, as we had seen the last one together. Don't judge me, btw, because you know you saw it too and if you didn't? I don't even have time to get into all that. I haven't been to a movie in a movie theater in almost a year either, so it was about time. Plus it was girls night! So naked dude movies and burgers.
Anyway, my almost-5-year-old daughter caught me looking at my phone and laughing at lunchtime today and asked me why I was "staring at my phone and giggling." My girlfriend who had gone with me to see the movie had sent me a YouTube clip of a scene in which one of the "male entertainers" was trying to make a convenience store checkout girl smile while dancing around to "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys. If you saw the movie, you'd know that this particular scene was far more hilarious and cute than racy, and there was pretty much nothing suggestive and no nudity besides some male toplessness, which kind of doesn't even count.
So my daughter sneaks up behind me and asks, why is that naked man dancing in the store?
I'm all, he's only shirtless, not naked. Let's be real. You see that that man has pants on, right? Right?
And she's like, mom, that's still not allowed. He should know better. And she shakes her head and walks away.
So I put down my phone, stuffed some mac and cheese in my face, and gave myself the Mom of the Year award for accidentally letting my kid sneak-watch scenes from Magic Mike.
Also, if you want my actual review of the movie? Hilarious and heartwarming. Everybody gets what they want in the end, but after a lot of stripping at a stripper convention (which really exist maybe? I have no clue). It was way funnier than the first one. Lots of partial nudity and adult situations though, so if you don't like that? Probably don't go then, I'm guessing. But if you're ok with that? Then you've probably already seen it, because I'm a little late on this one. I'm kind of lucky it was still playing, since the latest showing was at 4:50. But in real life that means I can still eat dinner by 6:30 and be in bed by 9. A+ mom time all around.

Summer Reading Wrap-Up

Yeah, so it's not summer anymore. In fact, the temperatures around my house dipped down into the 40's last night. Hubs had to grab a sweater before he left for work today. I can honestly say though that I didn't mind that because he looks adorable in sweaters and it was so soft and cuddly that I could barely stop hugging him to let him out the door. I totally love sweater weather. But this is not a post about sweaters or the impending (and awesome) early fall weather. It's about the last bit of summer reading that I wanted to update you all on, and how the "Summer of 100 Books" maybe wasn't so much.

Remember a few months ago when I told you what I was reading and what I had hoped to read? Well, done and done. So here's the scoop on those:
The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch by Neil Gaiman was really quite dark and depressing. I woke up before everyone else on vacation and wanted to get some reading in and forgot that I had only brought graphic novels with me. I finished like, 1 or 2 a day, and was left reading cereal boxes by the end of the trip. This was the last one I read and I gotta be honest? Not beach (or vacation) reading at all. I suppose I knew that beforehand, but not a good start for me as I've never read any Neil Gaiman before. Good storytelling, but I wasn't prepared to be that bummed out before breakfast. Can anyone recommend any other Neil Gaiman for me?
Before Watchmen Series. If you're a big fan of Watchmen, read these. The Moloch section gave me some context for the events that actually took place in the book, while most of the other ones just gave me background. I didn't particularly care for The Comedian, and The Crimson Corsair was just awful, and silly at that. Silk Spectre was about Laurie, the second Silk Spectre, and honestly I could've done without it. Nite Owl was actually about Rorschach, for the most part, and not the second Nite Owl. The one really stand-out piece was The Minutemen, about the first incarnation of the crimefighting group. I felt like that one could have been released on its own and it would have been a total success. I do plan to re-read Watchmen again this fall, just to try to connect some of the dots. In fact, I'm starting it this afternoon.
The Art of Fielding: A Novel by Chad Harbach. I really enjoyed this novel, but the ending wrapped up a little too cleanly and conveniently for my tastes. You kind of know what to expect from the last third of the book on to the end, and that's a little disappointing. What I can say though is that I enjoyed the story, and I wanted to finish this book whether I knew what was going to happen or not. This was perfect summer reading!
The Queen's Lover: A Novel by Francine Du Plessix Gray, a semi-historical novel about Marie Antoinette and her Swedish lover Axel von Fersen, was something I really thought I'd enjoy since I love historical fiction and more than that I do like a good story about Marie Antoinette. I also thought, hmm, there might be some naughty bits in there! I read the first hundred and fifty pages or so, and then returned it to the library. Why? Well, some of it is a dry history, the naughty bits aren't really naughty (or kind of tastelessly naughty without context). There is also the odd element of memoir by Fersen's sister Sophie. While it does well to capture most of Axel's story, even the bits about the American Revolution, I could not stay interested.  

And the "Summer of 100 Books"? That hit a snag about the time we left for our annual beach vacation in mid-August and Stenni didn't want anything to do with anything that wasn't beach- or boardwalk-related. We did slip in a few more fairy tales and I Spy-type books, but nothing to write home about. I'm just glad that we kept it going for as long as we did! But this was a definite mom-fail on my part for not planning a little better, and knowing that my kid's attention span just can't stay on one thing for too long. 

How did your summer reading go? Anything notable, couldn't-put-downable, or chuck-at-a-wallable? Tell me about it!

Other things my daughter says that make me want to weep

You may remember a few weeks ago when my daughter called me a bad word and I almost cried (that bad word was ma'am, btw). I was really not prepared for the onslaught of other objectionable things that an almost-3-year-old might say to her mom, but this conversation in the car yesterday really caught me off-guard. Let me just say first that my tape player in the car is broken again (yes I have a tape player, I made my husband have one put in so that I can listen to mixtapes, this important point deserves more explanation that I care to provide right now), so we were listening to pop radio, which we occasionally do on the way to the gym when I'm totally over the usual NPR news radio spiel. Anyway, the exchange went something like this:

song comes onto the radio...
Stenni: Mama, did you listen to this when you were little?
Me: Listen to what? The radio?
Stenni: No. This Taylor Swift girl song.
Me: No, she wasn't even alive yet when mama was little. I don't really like Taylor Swift. Wait, how did you know who this is?
Stenni: Oh, well because I like it. *sings along, thankfully the wrong words at least*
Me: sobbing silently in driver's seat

I know that this is another small stumble in the grand scheme of things. It could even be partially my fault for the occasional Z100 on our morning drives. I suppose that Taylor Swift songs are even made for little girls (she's practically still a toddler herself, and certainly sounds like one). But eeeew. And my little Stenni usually has such good taste in music. Her favorites, she tells me, are the Flaming Lips (I approve), the Beach Boys (ditto), and her papa (how cute). Mercifully, Ms. Swift does not crack the top 3. But how long until that changes? I think I'm struggling with how little influence I actually have over this independent little person's changing tastes. Also I'm wrestling with my apparent failure as a parent and also reasonable human being for allowing this to happen! Eegads!