Sturm Haus

back to school prep

I'm taking a few days off later this week to do a couple of projects around the house and to get my Medium Fast Man ready for school.

I asked him the other morning if he wanted to go with me to do school shopping. He's not a big shopper, but hey - I can offer. He needs long pants, maybe a sweater or hoodie, a fall jacket -- nothing major. "We could go to Old Navy, Kohl's, Target, Sears..." I trailed off. "Where else?"

"I like Target. Or Macy's," he said with authority.

"Macy's or Target, huh?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "That's where you shop for school."

"Well OK then," I said, wondering why he'd chosen those stores. Of course Target wasn't a surprise - Target is kind of our family happy place, with everything we might need or want under one roof. Macy's though, Macy's I had to think about. I shop there every so often - once around Christmas, and usually a couple of times a year for work clothes. But it's not like I'm there on a regular basis, and I almost never take the kids with me when I go.

Then I remembered last fall, when he and I took a mom-and-son shopping trip to the mall. We hit the Gap, and Von Maur, and Stride Rite too if I remember right. Maybe even Sears. But we ended up getting most of our haul at Macy's (they had a good sale that weekend). Guess we'll see what they have on offer later this week.

Also on my list:

• wash lunch bags and organize the lunch-packing gear
• plan a couple of new, fun and tasty kids lunches (in other words, get out of the pb&j rut)
• make some smoothie packets to simplify breakfasts the first month
• go through dresser drawers and get rid of outgrown, holey, or otherwise unsuitable socks and undies; replace if necessary
• weed out some of the kids books to make room for new
• create some sort of 1st grade homework binder, mostly for me so I don't miss things like projects

Jon and I also want to do a little DIY around the house over the weekend - paint a room, or rip out something almond and replace it. I don't know yet, we'll see how ambitious we feel come Friday night. I have two goals for myself - to upgrade the kitchen island with paint and butcherblock, and to work on Bel's room. If we get more than that done, great!

Tuesday after Labor Day is the big First Day. Bel will get dropped off in Preschool, and Otto will start first grade. Amazing how quickly that happens!

today we played dress-up

I played the Fairy Godmother.

I think you can tell who played the Princess.

She requested "blurry" pictures of her skirt swishing.
The Fairy Godmother did her best to deliver.

reading this week

This week I read about...

• Iris Apfel, the 90 year old style maven who's selling her own fashion line on Home Shopping Network. Makes the slightly-sobering prospect of turning 40 feel kind of... GREAT:  At 90, Fashion's Latest Pop Star.
• the NYPD, where they're evidently building their own version of the CIA from the inside out. Civil liberties are something librarians think about pretty often -- for example, my Board discussed and adopted the Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement. Even in my Mayberry-like neck of the woods we see things like the Hutaree militia. Is this going to be the new trend in policing?  NYPD CIA Anti-Terror Operations Conducted In Secret For Years.
• the difference between the government's budget and your household budget -- when talking about the national debt, I think it's good to realize they're not the same kind of thing:  Why Austerity Hurts at Get Rich Slowly.
• how hurricanes get their names. I always kind of wondered why we named them, and why the names were so specific.  Why Do Hurricanes Have Names? at history.com.

Busy weekend ahead! Lucky for us, though, it's going to be full of sunshine and cool blue skies and outdoorsy type things.

revenge

Otto is a big Captain Underpants fan. We're currently working our way through Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, Part 2: the Revenge of the Ridiculous Robo-Boogers at a rate of about 3 chapters a night.

So the other evening, Jon said "hey Otto! How about if I dress up as Captain Underpants for Halloween!" You could tell he liked the idea, he was bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation and laughing.

And Otto gave him The Look. The Look that said "Oh no. Please please please no. DON'T EMBARRASS ME IN FRONT OF MY FRIENDS, DAD."

I think he'd rather we do this and be completely unrecognizable:

Source: flickr.com via Heather on Pinterest

 

Or we could just be ourselves - Scary Parents. I love it!

(insert evil laughter here)

brain exercises for parents

The kids play nicely together, for the most part.

Lately they've been playing trains a lot. Otto's outgrown his Thomas stuff, but Bel has really been enjoying it and when she wants to play he's happy to join in.

This afternoon they were running trains around an oval track when Bel erupted into a total sobbing, crying meltdown.

"Otto take my train!" she wailed. And when Bel wails, you notice.

I tried asking if she was sharing like she's supposed to, but she was too upset to answer. Otto was holding Gordon hostage over his head, and she kept reaching for him. I asked if I needed to put the trains away -- almost guaranteed to get them to settle down if sharing is the problem -- and still she cried. I finally made out "I was using it!" from between sobs.

"Otto," I said, "was Annabel using the train when you took it?"

"I had it first!" he said, blue eyes guileless.

"That's not the question I asked," I said. "Was Bel using the train when you took it?"

He looked down. "Yes," he said, and tossed Gordon on the floor.

Bel retrieved the engine while I told them both that they can't just take things from each other, they need to ask if it's OK first.

And then I looked at my 6 yr old again and thought, wait a second. He just gave me a really sneaky answer, didn't he?

I think I'm going to have to start taking DHA supplements and playing suduko to try and keep up.

Oh, WHO AM I KIDDING.

friday finds

• So, you think genre fiction is terrible/easy reading because it's predictable? Not so fast, buckaroo: Spoilers Don't Spoil Anything at Wired explains that we enjoy fiction more when we know how a book's going to end.

• Friend Heather B. sent me this the other day - definitely worth watching and thinking about. The take-away? When you think you're right, you're not -- you're wrong and you just don't know it yet.

• Friend Jen lives in Midland, MI, where they have numerous beautiful mid-century modern ranch homes. Midland was the home of Alden B. Dow, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright's, and he left his mark all over the city. Jen's always emailing me house listings for drool-worthy, vintage homes. She just emailed me her latest find -- gorgeous! Too bad we don't have a reason to move there ourselves! Of course we'd have to win the lottery, too. Ah well.

• Speaking of lottery winnings: I picked up some office supplies tonight and am going to try organizing bills using this method with a binder. The filing drawer is a black hole for me -- things go in and never come out, and pretty soon I'm out of room. Not helpful! I suppose this also explains a few things about my office at work. Hm.

Source: applevalleygirl.blogspot.com via Heather on Pinterest

 

• The heat wave here finally broke, and we've had beautiful windows-open sleeping weather the past few nights. So it'll be cool enough this weekend to work in the yard (we have some digging to do). And if I get to feeling really ambitious, I'm going to start reorganizing the laundry room. We desperately need a family landing strip with better organization for backpacks and ever-bigger winter boots, and somewhere to stack the empty laundry baskets when I'm all caught up with laundry (doesn't happen often, but it does happen!). It'd be nice to get that all done before school starts in a few weeks.

• Today is our 16th wedding anniversary - yay! We'll do something fun tomorrow to celebrate -- it'll be my first full day off in 2 weeks, so just getting to spend the whole day with Jon and the kids will feel special. I think we'll go to DIYpsi and maybe find a piece of art for the house. 

Happy weekend!

music to my ears

Players from the Ann Arbor Symphony visited day care yesterday. They do a program called the instrument petting zoo and help kids try out different instruments.

Last year it was the cello that Otto liked. This year, he liked the violin.

"I played that violin so hard, it talked!" he told me last night with a big grin.

Evidently the violinist working with him here strongly recommended that he and his buddy start lessons, that they're naturals.

Well, YEAH. I already knew that!

More seriously - this made me a little teary, since Otto's never seen me play. I had to drop something when we moved here and had a baby, and orchestra ended up being that something.

New motivation to get back into it is a great thing.

not really a day off

Otto had a birthday party today (a lunch party at that place with the creepy mouse), and I had a work meeting at 11am. On a Sunday. And yes, I went, because it was important and sometimes you just have to be there when you're working with volunteers.

But at least it was at a park, so I took Bel with me.

She played while I met (she was SUPER), then we played together for awhile, and then we headed back into town.

I swung by REI to reserve a tent for camping in September (with Amanda & Co. - hooray!). Bel spotted the shoe display and shouted "Look mom! Shoes!" And because I'd promised we'd look for some new shoes for her, we went to check out the selection (pink Tevas on clearance? Score!).

Then we had lunch at Noodles, per Bel's demand request. I had penne something or 'nother, and Bel asked if I was going to come back tomorrow and have mac and cheese. Because really, that's the best possible thing you could ever eat, and if you don't eat it today you have to make time for it tomorrow. (She is SO ME sometimes.)

We came home and I took a nap. I worked yesterday, too, so I haven't done any laundry or cleaned any bathrooms. Tomorrow night is Board meeting, which means a long and stressful day. Work has been extra busy lately. There is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, in September, after some events are done and planning for fall is completed. Until then, don't talk to me unless you're armed with chocolate and a box of Kleenex.

I am so taking some time off around my birthday, and thinking seriously about booking a spa day. I've never done that before, but if there was ever a perfect time to do it, my birthday weekend (which immediately follows the end of hell month) is it.

celebrating lucy

In honor of what would have been Lucille Ball's 100th birthday:

I could sure use a few doses of Vitameatavegamin myself!