Georgia and the Mouse

She's a fearsome kitty. But it makes it awfully hard to get my work done.

Of kids and cats

I promise Grandma, this won't become a cats blog.

First the kids:

We brought Lastborn to his first CCD class of the year. They started the class off with a prayer service. Lastborn was not happy, but he cooperated and even participated! That night I was bragging to DH about how Lastborn was singing and even blessing his teachers along with the other kids.

Lastborn gets this big smile on his face. The one that means that either he is about to confess to something he did that will certainly embarrass me or he is about to say something that will embarrass me. Either way, I know it means trouble.

"And I blessed you, too!" he giggled.

"I know, you helped them bless the parents too," I replied, wondering when the bomb would drop.

"Like this!" and he made the devil-horns sign with his fingers held in a V shape. While everyone else was praying with hands outstretched, Lastborn was making rabbit ears like his big brother insists on doing in every picture.

Of course! Why not? We couldn't expect him to actually do what he was asked to do, could we? No, Lastborn had to put his own spin on things.

I'm recovering. After all, the devil horns during a blessing are a whole lot better than "pull my finger" during the kiss of peace.

Grandma, I'm very sorry that you already bought your tickets to fly out here for his first communion. If he makes it through the program, it will be a miracle. I will do my best and I think we all need to pray for the next 3 months. :-)

At the bus stop today, it was pretty cold. The moms and one dad were concentrating on not freezing while keeping an eye out for any stray kids. When all of a sudden I heard a familiar little voice shout out "I'm freezing my wiener off." Of course, statements like this can't be made in a quiet voice. We're still new here but I think the neighborhood parents have already figured out that we are the bad parents on the block. But further reinforcements of that theory are not real welcome. Thanks, Lastborn. I appreciate it.

I shot him a glance and mouthed to quiet down.

There goes that smile again. The I'm-about-to-embarrass-you-smile.

"Whaaaat!" He says. "I'm just saying. I might turn into a girl!"

There is not enough coffee in the world to make me ready for a morning like this.

Now the Cats:

The cats are getting very calm. They are out most of the day, no longer cowering under beds and hiding in closets. They spend most of the sleep hours under the couch where they can watch us all. They play for hours with the boys and they spend lots of time on their cat tree. Thanks Cheryl for recommending them. Not only was http://www.armarkat.com/ very reasonably priced but it only took three days for the tree to arrive. Amazing. And they love it. They spend lots of time on it. Nadia did try to climb into the hammock as soon as she saw it. But the hammock moved! So she is afraid of it for now.

Georgia has discovered the cursor on my computer screen. While this is very cute, it is also very disturbing when I'm trying to work. We will definitely have to get a picture of it before we break this habit though.

Welcome, our new babies

Announcing the arrival of Nadia Comenici and Georgia Peach.

This is Nadia.

And this is Peach.

They were found in a home in Cincinnati along with about 59 other cats who were either stuck inside the house with no one to care for them or were living around the house. Cat rescuers from all over the area worked together to find foster placement for all of the cats who survived and for the last 6 months these girls have been staying in a wonderful foster home outside of Cincinnati. The woman who took them in has cared for them and nursed them back to health. They were just little girls when they were found and had horrible respiratory viruses.

They are still pretty skittish though Georgia seems to be a thrill seeker. She darts around the house exploring everything even though you can tell that the slightest movement will send her back to her safety room. She seems to love the thrill of the exploration.

Nadia, on the other hand is very shy. She spent most of the day here:

Under my bed. You can almost see how sleek and silver she is. If you look past the eerie glowing eyes.

At about 2:00 she came out and frolicked with Georgia until the kids came home.

Mr Professor

I'm trying to encourage the kids to use the phone. I apologise to those neighbors who unwittingly answer a call from my offspring. But the only way they will learn how to use this tool is by actually using it. I hope you have a sense of humor.

Especially in this cold snap we are experiencing, it's nice for my kids to call their neighbors to see if they can play instead of walking down the street in the cold only to find that neighbor boy can't play because he didn't clean his room this morning.

So the other day, I overheard this conversation between firstborn and a neighbor:

Firstborn: I possess a strategy for which I need the consent of the convention of the directors before I proceed to execute the strategy.
Silence.
Firstborn: OK. I have a plan. But I need to run it by you guys before I do it; just to get your approval.

Pretty bad when an 11 year old has to translate back into simple terms.

You see, in 3rd grade they started learning to increase their writing skills by substituting "baby" words for "grown-up" words. This is a skill Firstborn relishes. He loves big words. So he practices in regular speech. He must have composed this speech all morning while "waiting until a more reasonable hour to call his friends." Not everyone gets up at 6am.

Even Grandma got to see Mr. Professor in action. The first day of her Thanksgiving visit, we waited for the boys at the bus stop. When the 12 kids that get off at this street disembarked, the same neighbor boy from the telephone conversation yelled out to Firstborn, "When can you play?" To which Firstborn responded, "Not for an indeterminate amount of time!"

I saw Grandma's eyebrows raise. Yep. That's Firstborn.

The neighbors all seem to have a sense of humor. One boy was home schooled until this year and he is familiar with the idea of using big words. He does a pretty good job of participating with Firstborn. The other boy prefers to communicate in grunts and single syllable words, which he tends to mumble at super-sonic speed. He's hard to understand but very funny if you catch a word he's saying. They are all smart kids, and very fun to be around.

Happy New Year

... to all my friends and family who read this.

I have been a sorry poster for a while and promise to try to do better in 2008.

But to catch everyone up with family info . . .

The kids got out of school on December 20th. We spent a few days at home enjoying some relaxed vacation time and catching up with all of our wrapping, packing and last minute shopping. Then, on Friday, we headed eastward towards MA. The boys were very happy that MA had 2 feet of snow on the ground!!! What a wonderful Christmas present that was. Firstborn got to go sledding with his older cousins at the park down the street. It had a really great steep hill and because the snow was melty, the run was very fast and slick. Firstborn slept well that night, but panicked when he returned home because he left his gameboy in his pocket while sledding and now it was gone. A quick return to the slope down the road found the charcoal black electronic device sitting at the bottom of the still-white snowy hill. Glad we bought black. :-) It was getting dark out, so I was very worried that we either wouldn't find it or someone else would have spotted and pocketed the device before we got there. Lucky, lucky.

Firstborn slept very well that night.

In previous years, we housed one sister and family for the holidays at our house while my other sister housed the rest of the family. This always made Christmas special because I was able to spend so much time with my oldest sister and we were able to spend lots of time in my other sister's house as well. This year we were in a hotel, having no house in MA any more. It was much more tiring coming home to a hotel instead of a house and we spent much less time with the family having to pack family visits on both sides into 1 week.

I also hoped to contact some of my friends, but time ran out. Firstborn was lucky to see one of his best friends for about 3 hours on the day after Christmas. Lastborn, unfortunately did not get that chance. We only had one car and DH had to work the day after Christmas. I had to work on the 27th. So the remaining parent was stuck at the hotel or at my sister's house.

So while the week was long and tiring, it still wasn't long enough. To all my friends that I did not get to see, I miss you and hope to see you this summer. Keep in touch and have a wonderful new year.