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.