My Week. In My Words. Cooties and Dead Mice Not Included.

The week started out innocently enough. In fact, if you don't take into consideration the odor of "dead mouse" in my car, mixed with the pleasant aroma of "Pineapple Orchid" purchased to cover up the dead mouse smell, things got off to a good start on Sunday.

Monday arrived normally and Gregg and I geared up for our parent/teacher conference time at Thing 2's preschool. Thankfully, we heard good things (though I did remind the teacher of what Mackenzie looked like . . . just in case she was confusing her with another little girl). She showed us examples of her work from throughout the year, complete with weekly evaluations . . . knowledge of phone number (good), address (needs some work), colors (perfect), shapes (still hung up on that stupid rectangle issue), dad's name (perfect), mom's name (none) . . .

Whoa . . . I grabbed at the paper. "She doesn't know my name?" I asked.

Her teacher laughed. "Oh, that's typical. That's why we've written 'momma' in the blank. She says that's your name. We asked her what other people call you and she said nothing-that you don't have another name."

Maybe it was the distressed look on my face, because she continued on and leaned in close.

"Hey . . . you'd be amazed at some of the stuff that we hear . . . dads who are mad at moms and call them stuff . . . this is GOOD!"

With the conference over and behind us, I consulted my planner. The rest of the day seemed ordinary enough. Of course, there was the issue of my forgetting to go and pick up my order from the Market Day fundraiser later in the evening. To make matters worse, I went to the wrong place to pick it up. Then I went to ANOTHER wrong place to pick it up. To make matters worse, I was also picking up my mom's order. Hence, my phone call to her to ask "where am I going?" (when I was the one who placed both orders to begin with) is now great fodder for both of my parents. Market Day is now referred to as "Market Night" and I don't think I will live this down anytime soon.

If you'd have paid me a surprise visit on Tuesday, you might have found me cutting out little heart shapes from American cheese slices in preparation for Mackenzie's preschool Valentine's party. Can I just say how much I agonized over the whole "snack mom" thing? To sugar, or not to sugar? To red dye or not to red dye? Peanut allergies? Lactose intolerance? Sheesh. Thankfully I got the go ahead and blessing to do anything . . . not a food allergy in sight. I decided on the aforementioned "cheese hearts" and crackers. In anticipation of hungry little children, I cut out about 120 teeny little hearts. At the party, I watched approximately 118 teeny little hearts go into the trash can. Even my second born tossed hers into the trash. "I don't like this kind of cheese," she said-tossing hers in with the rest. Moving on.

I paid a visit to Thing 1's school on Wednesday to watch PE class turned "Dancing With The 4th Graders." Nanna and Papa Dean have been sharing their ballroom skills with elementary schools in the area (Cassidy's included) and teaching the kids some hustle and jitterbug.



I had a good laugh to myself when they called for the kids to assume dance position and with arms folded, a nearly unanimous chorus of "NO!" rang throughout the gymnasium. Cooties are a definite problem at this age. Praise the Lord! All in all, however, I was really impressed at how well many of the kids danced and loved watching my mom lead Cassidy through some new steps. I'm thankful that they dance so well together 'cause between the current cooties issue and our soon-to-follow no dating policy, Nanna and Papa Dean may be the only partners allowed for quite some time.



CG's Valentine party was today. I played it safe with the food thing-pizza for everyone. Cooties not included. The kids were dismissed for the second half of the day and I was looking forward to collapsing at home. As we walked in the house after school, the Things started in.

"What are going to do now???" they asked gleefully. It didn't look like a nap was anywhere in my near future.

So many choices . . . the possibilites were endless . . .

"How 'bout a new game?" I ventured. They excitedly agreed. "Ok then. It's called 'let's find the dead mouse in mommy's car.'" They scattered.

Ahhhh yes . . . now, what was I saying about that nap?