Friday, March 15, 2024

5 on a Friday: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOROTHY!! (11/52)

 Dorothy is eleven today!

IHO the big day, here are some awesome things/birthday trivia about Dorothy, along with some retro pics (wrap up next week because her big celebration is a night at the Kalihari for her first dance comp of the year- she has been dreaming of this weekend for awhile. Definitely since the summer when she tried out for dance for 8 long weeks and her miser parents tried to limit her to just 5 teams, but then they relented at the last second when she got placed on 6. Now she lives her dream of SIX DANCES (with a pretty intimidating 12-hour schedule) at SHOWSTOPPER, and I’ll let you know how it goes).

1. Dorothy has spent her life tolerating ridiculous costumes and headgear— maybe that’s why dance team appeals?





2. Dorothy is the only kid in the family tp have five trips to Disney World— the boys have 4, and Minnie has 1. Dorothy got an extra bonus trip at dance nationals with her dad last summer.

Trip one:

Trip 2

Trip 3


Trip 4


And BONUS TRIP 5
3. Dorothy had basically the WORLD’S LAST PRE-COVID bday party in March 2020, celebrated a bummer of a VID bday and was BACK for parties 9 and 10– phew!

Seven:
Eight:
Nine:

TEN


4.  This is the third year that Dorothy and I are celebrating her day with a shopping spree and lunch— such a fun tradition! She also skips school on her birthday— love it.

5. This is the first year of her entire life that she’s not getting an American Girl doll for her birthday. **SOB** (because she DOESN’T WANT ONE **SOB**)
THE LAST DOLL (but I didn’t know it would be the laaaaast)











Thursday, March 14, 2024

Hello from birthday weeeeeeeek

 Ben turned FORTY-FIVE yesterday. When I started this blog, back in ancient times, he celebrated his 28th (and we thought he was old then LOL LOL LOL)


He sure did eat cake with chopsticks, since the sushi place sent like 12 pairs. They assumed our takeout order for two was for a party— SO JUDGMENTAL, SUSHI PLACE.

I also bought confetti poppers at target because I hate myself apparently?


We celebrated the big day on his bday eve with bar trivia. We were SECOND PLACE going into the final, but we bombed the last question, wagered big, and took 6th. Kids are great at bar trivia, by the way, because things that adults struggle to remember, are right there at the front of their brains because they are learning it currently. Jack was clutch for a question about matching artists and paintings (we got all 8 points) and a rhyme scheme question. Harry knew sportsball trivia and music answers, and we had our Swiftie along for the inevitable Taylor question— so helpful. Plus there was a Disney category that Minnie was all over. (The female lead in Aladdin— she knew it instantly LOL).






 



Everybody keeps asking me if I got my hair colored, and no! I did the box that didn't work and then I got a hair cut and a new part! And the gray! IS GONE. What.


Minnie-- still bananas for art projects.

I had a parent teacher conference at her school-- in the teeny chairs-- and her teacher sends home a little album of her going about her day, and it is TO DIE FOR adorable.
I try to buy Minnie Mouse clothes sparingly. But I could not resist this dress (from WAL MART of all places!)
She likes to wear my glasses and call herself MISS MINNIE, and I am here for it.
No time to rest on my birthday laurels! Dorothy turns ELEVEN tomorrow— time for another ugly homemade cake!


Hopefully my birthday elf will be around to help


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

In my menopause era. Officially.

 Unremarkable uterus and ovaries, is what the ultrasound results say. That’s GOOD news. 


Coupled with the note attached to my FSH results from a couple of weeks ago, it means MENOPAUSE, and this makes me feel like so much is over.


Not that I was going to have more babies. (The time for more babies was between Dorothy and Minnie, but I am pretty sure Minnie was the last egg).


On the becoming/being spectrum, I’m inching closer to has been in every way every day.


I had the ultrasound in the same place I had all my first ultrasounds, the five joyful ones and the baby who wasn’t, really. Driving there, empty, I remembered driving there for the first time to see what would be baby Harry, a little blurry gummy bear. The street names that I was anxiously looking for because I was driving in an unfamiliar part of town. The basement of the clinic that’s so silent and mauve. A waiting room full of glowing people anticipating a look at the potential their bodies are cradling or faded older folks who look both bored and anxious.


I was in the second group today, of course.


A kind, efficient tech who didn’t angle the screen toward me or turn on the wall-mounted monitor. “Nobody cute peeking out at you,” she said in her Wisconsin accent. Warm jelly on my belly and cold sterile jelly for the internal probe. The woosh woosh sound when she measured blood flow in my ovaries, but no galloping baby heart. Again. Ever.


I can buy really expensive underwear now. Clean out pads, tampons, ovulation strips, pregnancy tests taking up space under my bathroom sink. Throw away condoms for good.


We called our parents immediately after that first ultrasound with Harry to tell them about our squirmy little magic bundle of cells– 8 weeks pregnant, we gushed. I remember how happy my parents were, and how my dad laughed and laughed and said he just knew it was a boy.


After this ultrasound, I went to a coffee shop to do some work and walked in to see a brand new grandma and her daughter with a teeny baby just starting to hold his little head up and look with those alien navy blue newborn eyes at the world moving around him. 


An old man in a Vietnam vet baseball cap is having breakfast with his daughter at the table in front of me.


These are signs, right? That my world is as unremarkable as my ovaries and uterus, resonant glimpses to shush the what-ifs.


My second act is going to be to get rich inventing an estrogen soak– basically the fountain of youth in hormone form– how hard can that be? cue image of Gargamel chasing Smurfs

 



Monday, March 11, 2024

All we do is grocery shop, apparently.

 We had a very divide and conquer kind of weekend, which, honestly, is not my favorite. 

The boys had an overnight speech tournament. Cooper had a bunch of sporty stuff. Everyone needed hair cuts. Jack had drivers ed that Ben accidentally scheduled in a suburb 25 minutes away. We had tons of stuff to do for Ben and Dorothy's bdays (I ordered 4 dozen cupcakes for Dorothy to take with the dance this weekend to pass out to some of her team TWICE-- gotta fix that hiccup this week). Just LOTS OF STUFF.

Minnie was wild about making orange juice, but we only had cuties. She squeezed MANY CUTIES, and she maintained her enthusiasm through each one.

Harry watched Minnie, and I got this adorbs picture of them heading to the park
Um. my hair is broken in the humidity.
BEST omlet. 
We had time to make cookies (THESE, double the recipe, triple the chips)

The girls and I went to the zoo while the boys were in Eau Claire, and Ben and Coop were busy with Little league baseball tryouts



And Trader Joes, where the check out man gave the girls bouquets. (And I got 3 easy easy dinners-- stuff for sheet pan sausage and root veggies, a bunch of frozen pizzas with breadsticks and bagged salad, and chicken taquitos that I plan to bake in a dish covered with cheese and enchilada sauce)
While Ben had Coop at the barber on the way to diving while Jack did his behind-the-wheel drivers ed lesson (Harry was at work), I took the girls to Ulta for trims. Ulta is actually a GREAT kiddie hair place-- $25 cuts and they're open on Sundays! (Dorothy usually goes to the same Aveda place I go to, but I forgot to book, and her ends were ROUGH-- and she has to wear braids in 3 dances this weekend, and they'd be even cuter with blunt ends). 

Minnie was excited, obvi


(When we got home, I trimmed that longest back layer, and I stand by the decision).
Prime park weather-- love it so much.
Minnie, Jack, and I walked to another little gem of a park while Ben, Coop, and Dorothy went to Coop's end-of-season hockey party and Harry golfed with a friend.

We grocery shopped in-person at TJ's AND Ben went to our local coffee and cheese place and also picked up a Target cart that was mostly household stuff but also a few food items the other grocery store was out of AND a Metro Market order-- AND WE WILL PROBABLY HAVE TO BUY MORE FOOD BEFORE THE WEEKEND. (And! We wil be OOT for Dorothy's bday over the weekend and are going out for Ben's bday eve AND STILL-- 5 kids! EAT SO MUCH FOOOOOOD).