Buzzzzz

I think I may have mentioned that this was my post planned for February Instagram, but really, it’s not the end of the month yet, so I’ll save that for next weekend.

Instead, last Saturday was Spelling Bee Day!  Can you believe I don’t have a single picture from the bee? They made an announcement this year that all phones must be turned off, so I couldn’t even sneak in a phone picture!  When we arrived, we headed to the T-Z Registration Table, where we found that Maddie had been randomly chosen to go first.  And I thought last year when she was assigned #13 was bad!  Anyway, this really threw her, and even though Dave and I tried to play it down, the mom of the other girl from her school said, “Number One?  Oh! That’s BAD!”  Which didn’t help.

Anyway, Maddie stayed in the bee until Round 6, when she got the word “springerle”.  Now let  me tell you, I don’t want you or anyone to whom I tell this story to think I am making this up, or making excuses for her in any way. She did spell it wrong.  BUT…

She knew that word.  The spellers are given a 2,000 word list to learn, and all of the words until the last few rounds are from that list.  If you study, and she/we did, you will have an advantage. We had been over the list many times, we had made flashcards of the 20-30 words that occasionally threw her (schadenfreude heading the list), and we made up lots of mnemonic devices to help her remember weird things (like…accommodate has two c’s and two m’s because the word is big enough to accommodate double letters). People, she never spelled that word wrong, not even once. 

But the pronouncer said it wrong.  He pronounced it “springerlah” when it should be pronounced “springerluh”.  And that’s okay. I often mispronounced words so she would have to figure out which word it was just for that reason.  But she was concentrating so hard on making sure she didn’t spell “l-a” at the end instead of “l-e”…that she skipped the “er” before the ending.

As Dave and I walked out to meet her I said to him, “Oh man.  This is going to be bad.  She KNEW that word.  She is going to be heartbroken.”  And when we met up…she was. She cried and cried in my arms. “Mom, I knew that one!  I made a mistake!  I knew it!”  Ugh. My poor sweet girl.

When we watched the bee on Sunday night, we watched the whole thing, and she nearly cried again.  She knew every stinkin’ word in that bee except for “maxim” and “facilely”, two words that were not on the list. 

If you watched the bee, you may have seen that Maddie was also interviewed. Besides the interview she did on the day of the written test, WITF sent a cameraman and the host to our house two weeks ago where they interviewed her some more and took video of her playing with Herbie (who is now a STAR!), playing her flute, pretending to study her words,etc.  The interview turned out great,and I do have a few pictures from that I can show you!

Here is a link to the short interviews, they’ll send me a CD of her interview eventually, but I’m not sure how I’ll be able to share it.

Anyway, she’s already looking forward to next year, so we have to keep our fingers crossed that she makes the top 3 spellers in the school bee next year so she can try for her third and final time. 

Because the third time’s a charm, right?

Since I Got Nothin’…

…I thought I’d take a trip down Memory Lane.

Here are photos taken in descending order every February from now until 2004:

2013—Self-portrait taken 3 minutes ago because I didn’t take any photos this February with my big girl camera and my other Instagram ones are lame and anyway I’m using them next week for February Instagram (which I’m sure you’re really looking forward to now, as I’ve already told you they’re lame). Seriously though.  When did I get so dang old looking?  Ugh.

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2012-Maddie and Herbie

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2011—Jack at play

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2010—The BIG SNOWSTORM (the snow’s up to the swings in the background!)

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2009—We made soft pretzels for Valentine’s Day.  This was one of my first blogposts!

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2008—Bunko-Theme of the night…Britney Spears Disaster in the Making (anyone pregnant and drinking is faking the pregnancy to look like a bad parent—Britney style).

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2007—Snow Day

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2006-Fishing with Daddy

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2005—Nothing better than a Jammie picture.

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2004--Dressing up the stuffed animals.  Why did I want those days to pass so quickly?

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2003—two photos of my two Snow Bunnies

 

See you next week for some SUPER AMAZING Instagram photos!!!

Heart to Hearts

With a title like that, I guess I should save this one for next week, but you’re getting it anyway.

This morning I had a heart-to-heart talk with Jack.  He was getting ready for his First Reconciliation (confession), and was worried because he couldn’t think of any sins to confess.  I suggested some like “not listening to mom and dad” and “ fighting with Maddie and Ben” and he thought those sounded fine, but told me, “I need something MAJOR to confess!”  I told him I didn’t think he really needed something major, not unless something major had actually happened. “Oh!” he said, sounding very relieved. “I thought I needed to have a really good one ready!” 

In May, he’ll celebrate his First Holy Communion.  Unless we get to it late (ahem), I think he’ll be totally ready.

Maddie and I also had a heart-to-heart talk after coming home from seeing Les Mis back in December.  I haven’t shared this one before, because I was totally waffling on this one.  On the one hand, it’s a very private moment between Maddie and me.  On the other hand, I really don’t want to forget it!  I don’t think I’d be sharing it with you if I hadn’t gone private, but for the 7 of you still reading…keep your lips zipped.

So we’re driving home from the movie and Maddie’s sitting in the passenger seat.  I take a deep breath figuring now was as good a time as any: she was a captive audience, we didn’t have to look at each other, and there were no pesty brothers in the car.  I began, “Maddie, I just wanted to let you know that you any time you want to talk about—"

And here she interrupted me by holding out her arm toward me with her palm facing flat at me.  “NO!”  she said.

“What"?”I answered.

“Just…NO.”

“Honey, that’s fine, we don’t have to talk about anything now, I’m just saying that if you ever DO want to talk about sex or anything, I hope you feel like you can ask me.  We’ll both be embarrassed, but I think I’m a better source of information than the kids on the school bus.”

At this point she turned her head, raised her eyebrows, and gave me a look. “Well, look who’s tooting her own horn!” she quipped.

Oh my. (Here I let a few seconds pass where I frantically tried to control the laughter that wanted to burst forth from my very soul.)

“Well, I’d like to think I know more about sex than a middle schooler!” I told her.  (*Note to my teenage children reading this in the future…Daddy and I mostly just like to snuggle while watching Modern Family reruns.)

And that was the end of that.

Luckily, Ben has been smooth sailing lately.  The biggest heart-to-heart type talk we had going was something like,

Me:  “Dude.  You are killing me with this room.”

Ben:  “I know.”

Me: “So, what, this is all an evil plot to kill your mother?”

Ben:  “Haha.  No okay, I’ll clean it.”

Niiiiice and easy, thankyouveryuch!  By the way, I’ve already told my Modern Family Snuggle Partner that he is in charge of the sex talks with the boys.  Let’s hope his go better than mine did.

Jack the Photographer

I got an iPad for Christmas!  I was super excited, and Dave kept it a total surprise ‘til the end, and I have loved every minute I’ve been on it!

~Total minutes I’ve been on it?  14.
~Total minutes Jack’s been on it?    5,332,748.

He loves to go on the Google Earth app and travel around the world and take photos of all the places he’s been, like


and…



and..


He has learned the trick of taking photos of your iPad screen and now my Photo Stream is loaded with them.  As a bonus, whenever he’s surfing Google Earth, he narrates a play by play for us.  “Now I’m on a cool bridge.  It’s in um, Hampshire.  And there’s a house near the bridge.  With a dog house!  I can see dog house! But no dog.  Maybe it’s not a dog house.  Maybe it’s a shed?   That would be cool to have a house near a  bridge though. Now I’m going to fly home.  Whoa!  Mom, I’m flying home! I’m almost there.  I see our house!  And our sliding board! Look! There’s the Lerro’s house.  And the Butch’s house.  And Sarah’s house!  And there’s Erik’s house! I can see the trees in his backyard!” And so on and so on and so on.

The other thing he likes to do on my his iPad is play in Photobooth.  Here are some of his best shots:




He also likes to take pictures when no one’s paying any attention to him.

The little stinker.

Here’s what I think about that…

Ha.

Happy Groundhog’s Day!  We got Herbie a cake to celebrate.  (No, we didn’t actually, but now I wish we would have.)

P.S.Maddie made the WITF bee!  Look for her on WITF on Feb.24 (it will be taped on the 23rd)!  And keep your fingers crossed that she doesn't get schadenfreude or anschluss.  Ugh.  I'm dreading it already.