It's September!

...and you know what that means: BACK TO SCHOOL SHOE SHOPPING TIME! Yay!

Neither of mine are in school (or daycare or preschool, for that matter), but I still celebrate the school holidays, like Grading Day (which is NOT celebrated in our current province, for some mind-boggling reason. People my age have never even heard of it! HOW can you finish the school year WITHOUT a Grading Day? No presents? No trips to the chinese restaurant with your grandmother, and a $20 stuck in your hand? INSANITY!). SO Back to School shopping we went!

 

Wee Miss Dee is in some serious need of shoes. Her soccer sneakers were purchased at the end of June/beginning of July - size 10. This past weekend, we bought her new sneakers - size 12. TWO shoe sizes in TWO months?? Are you kidding me?? How on Earth is that possible?

Momma's Little Man is on a HUGE Lightening McQueen kick. He got a pair of light-up Lightening McQueen sandals in June, and the only time they came off his feet was for bathtime, and if he kicked them off in bed when he was sleeping. First thing after bath/nap/a good night's rest, he'd bring them to me saying "eye een ee-ee oos!" (Lightening McQueen shoes, for those of you who aren't yet fluent in Momma's Little Man...which is, you know...everybody but me. Hee hee!).  I knew that we'd need to get another pair of light-up shoes for him, so that mean we had to head to Payless!

As luck would have it, it was BOGO weekend. It was easy peasy to find a pair that Mr. Man liked (and wouldn't remove from his lap), but Miss Dee was another matter. She wanted light-up sneakers, too. Fine! But there were none in her size. Half a size bigger and half a size smaller, yes...but none in her size. She decided she wanted to go to Walmart to check out their Princess sneakers. Ookay! Off we go. The goal here is to leave with two happy kids, and it can't hurt to look. She picked out a pair all on her own (and couldn't be swayed to get the cute mary janes back at Payless that Mommy liked so much)!

The Princess sneakers went on her feet immediately upon purchase, and have yet to be removed. Good choice, Dee! She was very excited to wear them to the farm to show them off to the horses and new bunnies the next afternoon.

When she woke up the next morning, Dee complained about her tummy being sore. She followed it up with a fake cough, so I figured she was pretending, and I "there-there-dear"ed her, and tucked her into the couch. She ate her lunch, and she was well behaved, so I thought that was the end of that. On the way to the farm, we had to stop for a quick second at the mall so Handsome Hubby could run some errands. In the car, she complained again about her belly being sore and said she had to use the bathroom. OK! I gathered The Wees to me and we went into the mall to find a bathroom. Once we got inside and she saw all of the mechanical rides, she seemed better. I thought again that she must be playing a game.

You know the little voice in your head that goes "Well....hmmm..." Mommies should ALWAYS listen to that voice.

We got to the farm. Miss Dee is running around, playing on the swings, making friends, feeding the goats and horsies, climbing the rock wall, having a great time. She gets over to the play structure and a girl is blocking the slide. She climbs up to the top, looks over and says "When I get down the slide, I'm going to have to use the baffroom." OK - get on down here, then, and we'll go. But the girl is still blocking the slide. Little girl's parents telling her to move, Dee's parents telling her to "climb on down and we'll go the bathroom"...and then, all of a sudden, Dee says "I didn't make it."

First reaction: WHAT? What do you mean you didn't make it? Why didn't you tell us sooner you had to go to the bathroom?

Second reaction: Oh shit. She's really not feeling well!

Handsome Hubby lifted her down from the play structure, and we made a beeline to the bathroom. Poor Miss Dee is so pitiful ("Are you mad at me?") and throwing guilt trips left and right ("I told you all day my tummy was sore!").

Over the last two years, I've become quite skilled at removing poopy underwear from bodies without the help of scissors and without getting poop all over the legs. It's really a gift. I'm quite lucky.

As we get to the part where she eases her feet through, she stops being pitiful long enough to yell at me, "DON'T GET POOP ON MY BLUE-TEE-FULL SHOES!"

I'll be so sad when he outgrows this hat.

And now for something completely different.

Little Miss Dee tells me she wants to learn about sea animals. OK! Good! I find some awesome fact/colouring sheets online and print them off (all 20 pages of them), and we go to the library to get books on things that live in the ocean.

As we read each fact/colouring sheet, we learn about the class/order of the animal (mammal/fish/mollosk, etc), how big it grows, how many babies it has at a time, what it eats, how long it lives, etc., and then I ask Dee to write her name at the top of the page and to colour the animal.

This girl despises colouring. She half-heartedly attempts to colour the dolphin. Kind of shows an interest when I tell her she can use any colour she likes (and now we have a great white shark that was coloured with a literal fistful of crayons), but by the third animal (and it was HER decision to do five - I suggested only two, but she wouldn't hear it!), she was over it!

She sat at the table, a crayon in her hand, and she said "This Norvern Sea Lion is sooo big! I can't colour dat! I'll fall as-Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.", and pretended to fall into a deep sleep at the table, complete with fake snoring. She was so into character, that she didn't break her rhythmic fake snoring until ten minutes after I tucked her into her bed for a (fake) nap.

I hope she invites her little brother to all her award shows.

Last soccer game of the year! Miss Attitudewas awarded a medal and given her own soccer ball!