Trailblazer Day

Yesterday I took Ben (with Rebecca in tow) to Trailblazer Day at Belk Scout Camp, which is located somewhere in the middle of nowhere about 40 minutes from here. Trailblazer day is a day of scouting activities (target shooting, archery, fishing, etc) for scouts and their families that is attended, we discovered, by WAY too many people. We spent an hour and a half waiting in line for a turn at the target practice, then spent half an hour waiting in line for lunch. Then after lunch we spent half an hour in line for the climbing tower, at which point it was announced that they were shutting down promptly at 2pm and anyone towards the back of the line (like us) might as well give up because we weren't going to get a turn. Ben totally lost it at this news, and began stomping around and crying and calling the event organizers "stupid" and "ridiculous" and I am afraid I had to agree with him. This event would have worked much better if it took place during several weekends with the local scouts attending on an assigned day, rather than everyone at once. Ben only got a chance to do one activity the entire time we were there. Rebecca, fortunately, was quite well behaved and waited happily in line never realizing that she was never actually going to get to do anything ;) Joel was at work, and missed all the "fun".

Buy Some Popcorn, Watch Ben Throw a Pie

Click on this link to order some popcorn and help Ben raise money for his cub scout troop. Here are the reasons why you should do this:

1. Popcorn is yummy

2. If you don't like popcorn, you can make a donation instead and popcorn will get sent to our troops overseas.

3. If Ben sells $400 worth of popcorn, he gets to throw a pie in his scout master's face.

I am going to sweeten the deal - if Ben sells $200 worth of popcorn, I will let him throw a pie in MY face. And I will videotape it and post it here. How can you pass that up?? So far, he has sold, uh, $0. And the sale ends Saturday. So help him out, and buy some overpriced popcorn. 70% of your purchase will go directly to his cub scout troop, to help offset the cost of field trips and activities.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I edited the link above so that it should say "supporting Ben K" on the upper right hand side of the page - if it doesn't, let me know.

Evil Jester and Bad Kitty

Rebecca insists she's going to be a "bad kitty" for Halloween, and runs around making clawing motions at the air saying, "I'm a bad kitty! GGrrrrrr..."

Frighteningly cute, maybe?

Too Young for Dinner Theatre

That's the conclusion I've come to after taking the kids to a dinner/ performance at Rebecca's preschool last night. On paper it sounded like a good idea - a picnic-style pizza dinner followed by a performance by a local children's theater group. And it was FREE! I mean, what could be better?

In practice, I discovered that when you put a hundred preschool aged kids (and some older siblings) in a big room with no chairs dangerously close to bedtime, MASS CHAOS ensues.

Enough said.

BOO!

Another obligatory seasonal picture. I carved this pumpkin (using a stencil of course) while complaining every 5 minutes about why Ben had to choose the hardest pattern, while Ben wandered back and forth between me and the Phillies game asking "What are you doing now? What are you doing now? Are you done yet? Are you done yet? What's that?" I think he was pretty pleased with the result though. I think it came out pretty well considering the fact that I was rushing to get it done so Ben could go to bed.

Phillies Fans

Carolina Blue

Look at this sky, people. LOOK AT IT!

Because it's Fall

And when it's fall, you must take pictures of children with pumpkins, if you have access to both. It's some kind of law or something.

Hoops

TGIF

The potty train is back in the station. While Rebecca is happy to hold her bodily functions while we're out and about, apparently once we get home the living room floor, my bed, etc are all perfectly acceptable places to, shall we say, "let go". I sent her to preschool in underpants on Monday and Tuesday but I guess preschool is like her second home so she had no particularly strong desire to be continent there either. So. Back in pull-ups, and maybe we'll try again in another week or so...

Besides the potty news (or lack thereof) not much is going on. It has been a very busy week at work since it's coming up on election day. At least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Ben was transferred into a new classroom at school. He finished his first week in Mrs. Day's class today. The first grade was too crowded, so they added a 7th (yes, 7th!) first grade class and transferred a few of the kids from each existing class into it. The new teacher is not really new, she's been the literacy facilitator at the school for years and has experience teaching both first and second grades. Ben seems to like her so far. He also likes the fact that his new classroom is one of the mobile classrooms. Mom is not so thrilled about that, but of course the kids would think that's cool I guess!

Joel's college roommates Jon and Tim arrived today for a visit, so it's sure to be a fun weekend!

The Potty Train is Leaving the Station...

...Whether Rebecca is ready or not. I decided that IT'S TIME. So this morning I put Rebecca in underwear and we all headed out to Hodge's Dairy farm. The GPS took us an ass-backwards way to get there, which took about twice as long as necessary (we realized once we got there). Meaning that Rebecca's first car trip sans diaper was nearly an hour.

Hodges Dairy farm has a pumpkin patch, a corn maze, a petting zoo, pony rides, and a hay ride. What is doesn't really have is a bathroom. And since I didn't want to traumatize Rebecca by making her use a port-a-potty (those things are scary enough for grownups) we went potty-less for a good three hours. Three nerve-wracking hours, during which time I was surreptitiously feeling Rebecca's tushie to make sure she hadn't just peed on the seat she was sharing with a nice grandma on the hay ride....

But I am happy and impressed to say that she made it home without having an accident! Until about 20 minutes after we got home, when she pooped in her underpants. Maybe she's just not clear yet on the "no pooping in your underpants" rule. We'll have to work on that one.

The Jig is Up

Every school morning (lately) Ben climbs into my bed and asks for a granola bar for breakfast. This is convenient for me because I don't have to prepare anything, and convenient for him because I let him watch TV in my bed while he eats it and I go get Becca ready. So I thought it was a win-win situation.

Except, while bending down to pick up a stray sock, I just found all those granola bars. Under my bed. With at most two or three bites taken of each.

THE JIG IS UP BEN!!!!

Back to Reality!!

Sorry for the lack of blogging. On Friday night my friend Jessica arrived for a visit from Philadelphia, and seeing as how it was her first trip to Charlotte we had a lot on our "to do" list including eating at a variety of establishments (Pinkberry, Miro, Big Daddy's), go places (Carolina Raptor Center, US National Whitewater Center), and threw in some errands and schlepping of kids to birthday parties and doctor appointments in there as well.

We took Rebecca to her 3 year old well exam yesterday, where she weighed in at 32 pounds and change, and measured at 39 inches (90th percentile for height). She was not particularly thrilled to be at the doctor, but she didn't need any shots, just the nasal flu vaccine, so she was reasonably accomodating with that.

After dropping her off at preschool and doing a couple errands, Jessica and I headed to the US National Whitewater Center, with an original plan of maybe doing some rock climbing, but soon changed our minds and instead did flat water kayaking, and the aerial adventure course and climb-to-zip line. Afterwards we relaxed at the rivers edge cafe with some chili and beer and sweet potato fries. Today my arms are totally sore from the kayaking and the adventure course. But I'm quite pleased that we went to the USNWC because my only prior time there was with the kids, and we weren't able to do much. They have a lot more stuff there than I realized, including geo-caching and some additional zip line stuff opening soon. So now that it's back on my radar screen I am definitely going to get back there!

Today I am trying to get back into the work-routine, the blogging routine, laundry routine, etc. Back to reality!!