Best Mothers Day Weekend Ever? I Think Maybe. And That Includes the One Where I Got My PhD.

 My phone was missing for a few hours during yesterday's mothers day barbecue, and I found the above pic on it when it returned.  Ha!

Okay, so seriously.  I have not blogged since WEDNESDAY!  So, lemme catch you up on our scintillating life before I tell you about how much fun I personally had this weekend.

Thursday, the day of the many Buzz Lightyears:

 And, randomly, a spaghetti dinner at school that we weren't going to attend at all but then did because we were there anyway bickering while the big boys played soccer, and we figured what the hell.  Cooper shocked us all-- and himself-- by saying, "I weally wike spaghetti.  And meatballs!" Dorothy liked it, too.

 Jack was really proud of his polar bear art.  Harry made a really cool eagle with a QR code that we could scan to learn about his inspiration for the work.  I did not take a picture because I was ready to run away and hide after an hour of filthy children (mine) behaving terribly (mine, again).  But, hey, I didn't have to clean up dinner!

 Speaking of filthy, Dorothy's favorite thing to do is hang out in the pre-garden.

 Little Gym Friday-- we missed warm ups.  Again.

 After LG, we came home to play outside until nap.  This was just too damn cute.

 Speaking of too damn cute (my transitions are ON FLEEK today-- is that how you use that phrase?  WHAT DOES IT MEAN?)

 Cooper loves to have me trace him with chalk.  But it's creepy.

 Skateboarding.

 Cooper wrote his name!  That nice little o above this squiggly o is his, too!  I had to talk him through the construction of each letter, but I was still really impressed.

 Dorothy and Cooper found a caterpillar and poked at it for like 15 minutes.  Then it went into the grass, and they spent another 15 minutes looking for it.  NEED more caterpillars to kill the pre-nap hour for sure.

 Spaghetti dinner leftover!

 Post-nap snuggles.  I read a book, and they watched Daniel Tiger.  WE ALL WIN.

 We had to hit the ground running on Saturday for 2 soccer games preceded by lacrosse.  Since Ben coaches Jack's soccer team and Harry's lacrosse team and the two soccer games overlapped, the day required all of our participation.

We got off to a rocky start.

 They were fighting ON me.  ON ME.

 But we stopped by the library on the way to lacrosse and then had a lovely picnic (except Ben-- Harry ate his lunch because I left Harry's in the fridge).

 So sweet.

 Cooper and Dorothy passed out  on the way to Harry's soccer game, and I parked near the field and watched the game for awhile.  Then I continued to watch the game from the playground while they caused hell.  Ben and Jack arrived triumphant about halfway through the game and took over playground duty, and I got to watch soccer.  It was really lovely, even though our follow-up Costco and Coops trip bordered on hellish and we were gone from 9-3:30, and I stayed up late packing a picnic the night before.

 Friday night, we went out to a Mexican place with killer margaritas and the golf course bar near our house to celebrate my upcoming 37th birthday!!  IT WAS SO FUN.

 Aren't we cute?

 I got lovely gifts, and even though the food was kind of bad, we got super drunk at dinner and then adjourned to the bar and there were shots.  Apparently.

 NOT sober.

 Not a single sober person here.  My face hurt from smiling so much,  A good problem to have, always.

 But you know who did NOT have a hangover?  These 4 kids who were so excited to wake up and go to the same fancy hotel mothers day brunch we have attended for YEARS.  Here we are in 2012, 2013, and 2014.  The kids love this brunch so much, they talk about taking THEIR kids there for Mothers Day with me.  My work here is done, obvi.

 They weren't really feeling the picture OF COURSE.

 A nice hotel worker took one of all of us.

Cooper looked like a build a bear.

 Dorothy was HILARIOUS and kind of a handful

 Cooper;s first kiddie cocktail experience was a SUCCESS

 Oh you guys, we "cheersed" so many times.

 He ate more bacon than he should in a year.

 They were so happy!

 And messy!

 Then we came home, and I slept off my drinks while making a terrible dump cake from the dump cake cookbook I got for my birthday.  When I woke up, we loaded up the whole circus to got to our friends' house for a barbecue.  A grilled cheeseburger barbecue.  Everyone has been raving about these grilled cheeseburgers, and now I cannot wait for it to be mother's day again so I can have another.  And no I can't make them at home-- too fat and they wouldn't be special.

This is my fave picture.  A dance for adult swim at the pool.  The rest of the kids and adults need to get up to speed by Memorial Day weekend.

 Dorothy just wanted to play the drums, man.

 A mothers day shot ski.  Like you do.

 Then Ben took all the kids home, as did the rest of the dads, and all the moms stayed for champagne cocktails.  We also played Spot It for cash, which I recommend you do at your next gathering.  That's a way funner grown up game than it is when you play it with the kids.  Also, I won $12.

SO FUN.

Until, you know, I tried to help clean up and dropped a huge bowl of fruit salad EVERYWHERE.  Thank god I did not break the bowl!  So embarrassing.  I was on my hands and knees cleaning up fruit, and I heard someone say "What should the caption be?" and this picture was on FB before I even stood up.  Don;t you wish I could be your dinner guest?  Did I mention I bring 4 kids with me?  Dream guest.

This is Dorothy's Monday outfit.

 Accessorized here with a Bitty Twin and a plastic backpack that contained an Elsa Disney Infinity character from the Wii U and bald baby.

Our garage is our of commission because we are having a garage sale this weekend.  Woo-hoo!

Music show!

Harrison had a music show at school this morning, something that I forgot about completely.  I noticed that he looked way more terrible than usual this morning in a horridly mismatched shirt and short combo with messy hair and slipper socks sticking out over the tops of his shoes.  I thought to myself damn he looks bad, is there a special even at school today?  (Because the boys always look their worst on special occasions).  And then it hit me!  School music show at 9:00 am.  Although I had the foresight to prep breakfast (homemade french toast-- made the batter ahead of time and put it on the fridge--bacon -- got my foil-lined cookie sheets ready to go so all I had to do was throw the bacon on them and throw them in the oven that I was sure I could remember to preheat to 375 the moment I opened my eyes-- and strawberries-- sliced them and threw them in bowls) last night, Dorothy, Cooper, and I still had to get dressed and get to school in time to get seats.  A little stressful, this realization.

The music show was a special kind of hell, by the way.  Surprisingly long.  And Dorothy and Cooper are not long music show material.  I thought I was going to have to beat the shit (metaphorically, of course) out of the older lady in front of me who kept shushing Dorothy.  On the one, yeah totally.  SHE WAS THE WORST.  On the other hand, dude, lady, check the venue.  We are in an elementary school gym FFS.  

And THEN Dorothy ran onto the riser to give Harry a hug.  I was right behind her, natch, and I got to treat the whole crowd to a view of my ass crammed in short-shorts.  You're welcome.  As I was grabbing Dorothy, a little boy said "That's embarrassing."  I don't know if he meant for me or her or Harry. But yeah, totally, dude.

I also had to stay after the program to wait for the school psychologist to come out of gym so I could yell at her because as Dorothy was making a break for it she-- from her criss-cross-applesauce position on the gym floor in the middle of a class of 4th graders-- snapped her fingers at Dorothy and reached out her arm and hissed at her.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, LADY?  I wouldn't want her to talk to my DOG like that, let a lone my KID.  Also, this lady just got hired full time for next year, and 50% of her appointment is for "positive behavior support."  **Snort**  She's gonna knock that out of the park, I can totally tell.  But she never came out, so I had to settle for an email.  CC'ed to lots of people.

Sunday we had donuts because I asked Dorothy what she wanted to eat, and she said "Surprise donuts," so she and I went to get some, and when we came home she ran downstairs and told the boys "Surprise!  Donuts!"

 Dorothy also helped set up a teacher appreciation week spread at school.  SHE'S SUCH A HELPER.

 We also discovered a pristine and palatial library 3 minutes from our house with tons of brand new fiction just waiting on the shelf and a giant CASTLE in the kids' section to read in.

 Golf course bar makes an excellent pear martini.

 Front row kid.

 This sounded as good as you can imagine.

Genius Bar rant and How Old Do I Look pics

May is my FAVORITE month.  My birthday.  Mother's Day.  The end of my school year when the kids still have a month to go.  The opening of the pool. It's fabulous.

This month, though, I have spent WAY TOO MUCH time at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store at my mall.

First, we added a Disney World leg onto our Hilton Head vacation this summer (shut up-- they're practically next door), so I took all 3 of our road-trip ravaged iPads in for repair.  Except the goddamn geniuses don't repair iPad mini displays, so they offered to replace my 2 cracked ones for $199 each.  Um.  What?  New ones are like that same price.  SO, I bought Otterbox cases for them, and you can barely tell the screens are even cracked. And if they had been wearing Otterboxes in the first place, we'd have no problems right now.  The other one is my original iPad from my birthday/Mother's Day 2010 (see, I told you this was an awesome month). Dorothy spilled a milk box on it and now it is broken.  Except it still makes a hopeful noise when it's plugged in.  Alas, the "genius" could not fix it, so we have to buy a new one-- I am waiting for a good Father's Day sale at Target.  Moral:  ALWAYS buy AppleCare on your iPad even if you normally don't buy AppleCare.

(Also, thinking of just getting 4 Kindle Fires, but how does that work with the apps and media we already have through iTunes?  Also also, I know third parties can repair the display, but it;s kind of risky and Apple won't fix them if anything goes wrong, and I can see how things could go wrong because my phone-- which brings me to)

Second, I dropped my damn phone walking to the park carrying Dorothy and pushing her purple car that she no longer wanted to ride in, and the screen on my 6 Plus shattered in a million pieces.  Which was so unexpected because I have a case with a small lip around the edge that is supposed to absorb impact, and I have dropped my phone eleventy billion times in the last couple of months and nothing happened.  Ben was working late, and I would rather eat my shattered screen for breakfast than take my phone to the Apple Store with everyone in tow, so I went the next morning as soon as it opened.  And enjoyed a 40 minute wait.  The genius I talked to wanted to repair the screen, but I just wanted to switch the whole thing out for a new one because I was running late and wanted to go to my office and not have to come back to get my phone and it was the same nominal fee thanks to AppleCAre Plus.  He had already filled out all the repair paper work, though, so when I said I wanted to replace it instead, he made a show of checking a damn drawer where they don't even keep phones and telling my my phone was out of stock.  I could tell he was full of shit, but I just needed to get the fuck out of there, so I was like whatever and went to work phoneless and had SUCH A PRODUCTIVE DAY.

On a side note, when I picked up my phone after work, I bought a $35 screen protector, and it is the biggest piece of shit ever-- do not buy!  I ended up taking it back and buying a giant case from a kiosk vendor that is so big I cannot hear my phone unless it is on speaker, so I also took that off but kept it in a drawer because I AM NOT GOING BACK TO THE FUCKING MALL ever again.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

I picked up my phone.  It seemed fine although the screen felt a little tacky and didn't slide as smoothly but whatever.  The next day, though, I tried to call Ben from Costco and discovered that the ear receiver didn't work anymore and the phone could only be used on bluetooth or speaker.  SO there I was BACK AT THE APPLE STORE this time with Cooper to get a new phone. And of course, not even 24 hours later, my phone was in stock because the first genius was a lying asshole.

So there you have it.  I have been at the Apple Store way too often.  Also, the new phone software has the camera arranged differently, and my photostream was gone, and I was so frustrated I almost signed up for a class at the mall like the adorable older woman who was learning Facebook on her iPad.

Oh my goodness, sweet little Cooper won a spot on the after-hours pizza and movie party at his preschool at the school auction.  He was so ambivalent about the whole thing.  He wanted to spend one more chunk of time with his teacher who is officially now on maternity leave, but going to school at night is weird and he hates pizza.  We got a call that he might want to come home, but then 20 minutes later, we got another call that he was having popcorn and fruit snacks and was totally happy.  He came home triumphant and saying the party was "the best."

 Dorothy likes Baby Henry, but she is also quite jealous of him.

 I took Henry, Dorothy, and Coper to Costco because we had NO FRUIT and needed a Costco-sized infusion of it.

 And it worked out pretty well.

 SERIOUSLY.  He is adorable.

 Could Cooper have more mom jeans?  He also has about 32 pairs of shorts.  We are having a garage sale in a couple weeks, so we finally cleaned out and organized all the kid clothes.  SO MANY 4T's.

I finally got to see my first lacrosse game, and it was both preppy and horribly violent.  My favorite.

My pictures are not the best because I was dealing with Cooper, Jack, and Dorothy, and I was clearly more interested in Dorothy's awesomesauce Olaf tank top.  It is about 10:00 am in these pics, and Ben is SO SUNBURNED from his 65 minutes outdoors.  Coaching is rough.

Have you seen people posting those How Old pics on Facebook?  My friend Holly sent me one of me and Ben that said Ben was 37 and I was 28, and I was hooked.  Yesterday on the elliptical, I spent 35 minutes running pics on that site and taking screenshots of them.  You're welcome.

Clearly, the Badlands aged us.  Except for Benjamin Button over there.

 I guess those old-timey Instagram filters really work.

 This just kills me because I was trying out the selfie stick and this is the worst picture ever.

 I am 22, but that pic of 13-month-old Cooper is 33.  Ha!

 No makeup!  24!  BEST WEBSITE EVER.

 Eff yeah!

Mom!  It thinks we're both 30!  And Jon is the oldest!

April: What I Read

I am starting to sound like a broken record, but wow did I read a lot of good books this month.  I mean, seriously.

13.  New Uses for Old Boyfriends by Beth Kendrick:  This was not my cup of tea.  Chick lit in the extreme.  Lots of skimming.

12.  All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews:  I mean, you guys, this book is out of sock on Amazon, but it was too sad for me.  And not sad in a cry-with-abandon kind of way.  Just sad.

11.  Paper Hearts by Courtney Walsh:  You guys! I know her!  This book is sweet and sentimental and lovely.

10.  Night Night Sleep Tight by Hallie Ephron:  Loved the description of old Hollywood, and to make it even better, this book is set in the 80s and the fashion scenes are great.

9.  Swing State: A Novel by Michael T. Fournier:  Oh, wow.  I read this in a snap, and it was SUCH A BUMMER, but an entertaining one.

8.  Almost Famous Women: Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman:  I loved everything about this-- each story was better than the next.

7.  Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller:  Yikes.  You should read this.

6.  Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum:  SO DEPRESSING, but the writing was really lovely.

Okay, you guys all 5 of these were truly great reads.

5.  Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel:  A dystopian story of a traveling Shakespeare group-- so weird and wonderful.  It reminded me of the Night Circus the way it created its own perfectly coherent little world.  fascinating.

4.  The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion:  I LOVED Don Tillman's voice in the first Rosie book, and I was completely charmed by the sequel.

3.  Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova:  Ok, so this was not as good as Still Alice, but it was still good.  And I cried.  A lot.

2.  The Precious One by Marisa De Los Santos:  She is my FAVORITE.  If you haven't read any of her books, they are ALL GREAT.

1.  The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins:  Everybody says it's this years Reconstructing Amelia only not as good, but I don't know-- it was pretty damn good.

56 books so far this year...