rollers!

i’ve been watching fellow blogger friends’ attempts and successes at the roller thing and have been completely inspired to try it out for myself.

only problem was – i didn’t have rollers.

so i was content to just live vicariously through them for a bit and stick with my boring old trainer and prayers for nice weather.

and then i came home last night night after dinner out and a bottle of wine with a friend to find that the roller fairy stopped by & dropped off a set in our living room. literally. rollers in my living room. out of the blue.

i was so excited that i tried them out; half a bottle of wine, jeans and all. we didn’t video tape that part.

we did, however, videotape my attempt today. this is part one.

oops, she did it again

i swore to myself the other day i would stop doing this. this posting of my daughters’ letters. i’ll understand if y’all go running for the hills at this point, but i just can’t resist. i’ll keep it short and paraphrase and while i’d like to say this is the last time - never say never.

dear Mom,

I realy want that game I want to be a dog sitter or a teacher when I grow up. but I don’t want dog slubbur all over my face. So I thought about school. I like it very much. And then I started to think about Ms. Thompson. I love her. And then I thought “I want to be a teacher when I grow up!” So now I want the game Imajine Teacher!

You get ready for the leson of the day and decorate your own classroom and arange feald trips! I really want this game. All those other persuasive letters are actchulay about the teacher game.

….and so on and so forth with the please, and I’ll pay my own money and I want to be a Ms. Webster, yadda yadda yadda. my personal favorite was the dog slubbur bit. and then of course the whole, “all those other letters was just leading up to this one thing that i really want” bit.

slubbur.

i told her she doesn’t need a game to teach her how to be a teacher. i told her i was a teacher and we didn’t even have nintendo when i was little. she asked how i learned how to be a teacher and i told her i went to college. she said college is expensive, the game “is only, like, $20”.

letters from lulu

last week, my nine year old asked me if i would buy her a new game for her nintendo ds. i’m sure i raised my eyebrows at her in that we are in a recession, and until it starts raining money, i’m not heading out to just willy nilly buy games for you people way. but before i could say all that stuff, she explained that it was a math tutoring game. and girlfriend does indeed need some help in the basic, rote, math skills area. i go online to verify that it is indeed a tutor-y, fun, learn-y sort of game and since i am not sitting down with her and the flashcards, i was happy to buy the game for her.

this blatant, buying of a new ds game for one daughter did not sit well with the other daughter. even though i tried to smooth it over by saying it was just to help her with her math skills.

you know where this is going, right?

right as rain, that girl wrote me a letter. i had recently told a friend that in the absence of being able to write about what i’d really love to write about, i just wait for my daughter to come home from school with something funny and inspirational. she never disappoints. days after buying the game for annabel, this comes home in the backpack:

Dear Mom,

I don’t think it is fair that Annabel got a video game and I did not. I’ve been wanting Dogz pack for two years. I want it because, I want to be a pet sitter when I grow up and I don’t have the skill for it. I know I have Nintendogs but that’s not enogh. I’d really like it if you got me it. Like you could youse half of your money and i’ll youse half of mine. We can totaly work this out. I will love takeing care of dogs when I grow up. Because you will help me get the skill by buying the game. I will love it, then I will take care of dogs the way they need.

From, Claudia

i swear, i have got a book floating around in my head somewhere, but at this point, i may just have claudia qhost write the whole thing. she’s got way more material. maybe i should just call the book letters from lulu.

far more entertaining than the family saga i had up my sleeve, or the rv road trip adventures of the webster clan.

sometimes, i want to be 7 again.

i watch my seven year old leave the house everyday in her favorite shoes. the shoes she can’t live without - black patent leather mary janes. and i can remember, like it was yesterday, when i was her age and i had a pair of shoes i couldn’t live without; patent leather mary-janes. only mine were red.

right now, it seems that my seven year old is providing me with more blog material that i can currently come up with on my own.

but my own material would consist of the frustrations of not being able to please everybody, of treading rough waters and of feeling that i am in over my head.

it might consist of the fact that my head has been in a fog and only just now is the fog lifting and i feel creative.

or i’d write about the day to day of winter training and of how i just want the season to start already, or of how much i love the all too rare official “day off” on my training schedule in which it is suggested that i do things like: nap, listen to music, get a massage, stay off my feet as much as possible or float in water. cause the thought of floating in water makes me laugh.

or it would be about how nice it was to finally get off the damn trainer and get outside with good friends and teammates and get some good, long rides done in 60 degree weather.

or i’d write about how i wish i didn’t care what people thought about me or said about me, but i do.

my seven year old has got it all figured out. this just came home from school to go with the definition of a personal view of oneself:

I’m butiful.
I’m smart.
I’m cute.
I’m awsome.
I love my family.
I think Spongebob is the best.
Sparkly shoes make me look cool.

cause that’s just so much easier.

my daughter is a stalker

my youngest daughter is stalking a video game designer.

the kids have been home for almost a full week due to the recent ice storm that hit kentucky. we were lucky in that unlike last september when ike hit and we were out of power for eight days, we never lost power this time around. everytime someone asked do you have power? and i responded yes; i knocked on wood.

the thing about my kids that is so great – well, there are lots of things that are great, but one of my favorite things is their amazing imaginations. the little games they make up in their heads enable them to write cool stories, play fun games - all without the need of a cruise director (aka mom) and completely entertain themselves; which then of course means that a certain sanity is maintained during a random mid-winter week off from school when its’ too icy and cold and there is too great a danger of being crushed by a falling ice-laden tree to go play outside.

they’ve had races around the house on scooters, roller skates and skateboards. and when he wasn’t busy writing code (you know, for fun)our 12 year old served as referee and coach. my husband and i would watch in awe as our youngest would literally fly and drift through corners, completely fearless – narrowly missing the liquor cabinet and/or the xbox on numerous occasions. things would have definitely gone way downhill had either been hit.

she’s a total shoe-in for roller derby or cyclocross.

among the weeks’ activities too numerous to list, my favorite was lulu’s stalking of the video game designer.

it started, i suppose as stalking usually does – innocently enough. lulu has a favorite little online game called fancy pants. she felt fancy pants needed a friend – fancy skirt. so she did what she does best and wrote mr. video game designer a three page letter. actually, she ransacked my notecards and wrote a three notecard letter, which she then shoved into an envelope and asked how we get it to him. i told her she needed to find out his mailing address. in her search for his mailing address, she, in her 7 year old infinite wisdom does one better and finds his blog and his email. she scraps the “old school” snail mail letter idea and starts to write him an email instead.

what cracked me up is the fact that she did the whole search on her own. when i peeked at the browsing history, the search string for his name is far and wide - it was totally evident she knew exactly what she was doing. she’s 7. and this impressed me and disturbed me at the same time.

so she writes her email about her great idea for fancy skirt and her dog, fancy shorts and how they all become friends with fancy pants and work to defeat the evil giraffe, and we wrote a little note at the bottom of the email to thank mr. video game designer for taking the time to read the email from a very big little fan.

he wrote back the next day.

he said it was a great idea and that fancy skirt would indeed be making an appearance soon. and then, he asked if she did any drawing and said she should put her story down in pictures.

if only he knew the can of worms that would open up.

she spent the better half of a day drawing a video game. page after page after page of fancy skirt, fancy pants, their dog fancy shorts and their adventures. the pictures came complete with the written story line. –which she then proceeded to beg me to scan immediately so we could get them off to mr. video game designer. cause “he’s waiting”.

she could barely contain herself and decided (unbeknownst to me) to email him again to let him know her book was on the way:

Hi this is me Claudia! I’m hoping your reading this because your never writeing back to me. I know your busy and all but don’t you have time to check your e-mail some people are sending notes to you. anyways I’ve been waiting for fancy skirt to come out an all but I know I haven’t gave you the book but you should still check your e-mail because I’m sending the book to you right now!

he wrote her right back to say he was out of town but that he did indeed read her email on his phone. he told her not to worry, the character and story line were all planned out. i gotta say, he has a very polite knack for: “i’m way ahead of you kid, hold your horses and fancy skirt will debut soon”.

now that the ice has melted and school is back in session, i am willing to bet this stalking affair is over; or better yet, through the magic of her 7 year old online research, she’ll just create, design and code her own game. in the meantime, i bet she’ll return to writing persuasive letters to us. she’s been really pushing hard for a snuggie.

i’m just waiting for her to start googling and then writing to the snuggie manufacturers - she’s noticed that there don’t seem to be any snuggies small enough for a seven year old. i told her to wear her bathrobe backwards, but she was not amused.