A NORMAL AFTER SCHOOL ROUTINE

This how it is at our house after school. Come home. Strip. Usually she leaves a trail leading to her bedroom upstairs. Quickly put on her gymnastic clothes. I put her hair into braided pigtails (it's finally growing out after not one but TWO self haircutting fiasco's). Then head over to the gym with a snack and drink in hand.

YES SIR THAT 'S MY BABY

About two weeks ago Mimi's school started to do random one minute math test. The first one is the picture on the left. Out of 20 problems Mimi only answered 12. I knew something was not right because she knows her math. Together we went over the test and she knew all of the answers correctly. Since Ms Greenfield tends to run her class Montessori style, she has around 3-4 students sitting together at one desk. Mimi likes to sit next to her friends and goof around. So I asked if she was goofing around that day when they were supposed to do the test. The child said "no". Hmmmm I thought. I think I will take her answer with a grain of salt. Last Friday when I went to volunteer, again Ms Greenfield gave the kids the one minute math test. Only this time I noticed she had Mimi sit all by herself at a desk that was facing the wall. As a result Mimi got 20 out of 20 problems correct which is the picture on the right.

SNOQUALMIE CASINO AND BUFFET

After a full day of skiing and tubing we were all quite in need of a shower and clean clothes and most importantly we were HUNGRY!!!

So we all went home to shower and change then head back to the casino for dinner. It was not bad at all. Not as good as Salty's on Alkai but not bad for casino food. With the help of Mimi, I had two helpings of the King Crab. Yu-um-mmy!!!

Bailey who truly adores Mimi asked if Mimi could come over to their house later and play. Since there is no school tomorrow, I said that it would be ok. Then Keri said that if Mimi wanted to, she could sleepover to which Mimi said "YEAH!" You would have thought that Bailey had died and gone to heaven.

So when dinner was over Keri and Amy took the kids home. Wade and Dominick (Amy's husband) stayed to play cards. I went and got my very first casino card and played the slots for a while.

Many years ago while working for UCLA, one Saturday afternoon I picked up dad before going all the way out to Malibu to make a visit to my last client for the day. On the way home, we stopped by the famous Moonshadow restaurant in "Mel-i-bu" I had and still have the mom car of an SUV. We got to the restaurant early but when we came out my car was nowhere to be seen in the parking lot. There were quite a bit of Jag's, Lamborghini's, and so forth. The valet people decided to park my mom car about a mile down PCH so that no one could see it. To this day, dad and I have a good laugh about it cause the very same thing happened tonight at the casino. When the valet brought my mom car to us, they parked the furthest from the curb while all of the other more fancy cars were parked the closest. Oh well, maybe when I get older I'll get a sportscar where the roof comes down.

MAKING SNOW ANGELS

On the way back to the car, Blake and Mimi thought that it would be a great idea to make snow angels. Keri told Blake to get up because he was laying in front of another car that had its lights on like it was getting ready to move. "But mom! This is the best snow to make your angels in!" cried Blake. I must agree that fresh fallen snow is the best snow to make angels in however his location was not the greatest.

We then all packed into the car and made a clean bathroom stop at The Pancake House and get some hot cocoa to go.

INTERTUBING

When the ski lessons were done and lunch was polished off, except for dad (ski clinic), we all headed across the street to where we could go intertubing. Even mom got into having loads of fun. Lots of exercise too. I am trying to get somewhat in shape for when we go to the olympics in a couple of weeks.

After sliding down the hill, you go over to where the operator will hook your tube up to the tow rope and you sit in the tube all the while being pulled up the hill which is super long. All while sliding down the hill, I would yell out to the people "Get outta the way! I can't stop!" But of course I did stop only to have Mimi take her tube and play bumper tubes with me. She thought that was hilarious. I tried to get a video of her sliding down the hill but it was snowing way too much and things were a bit cloudy.

We all rode our own intertube except for Bailey who rode down with her mom Keri. It really is a whole lotta of wintertime fun.

Next thing we knew it was time to head for home. A good time was had by all.

CHALLENGES

My Mimi bless her little heart absolutely hates anything that is challenging. She says that challenges are "stupid" and "I like things that are fun and easy". Can you blame her? However I tried explaining that life is not always fun, fun, fun and easy, easy, easy. For example when she gets a new song to learn on the piano, she really does not like learning the new song however once she does learn and can play it well, she loves it and has her friends sit and listen to her play.

The other day she came flying home and said "Guess what mom? We had a discussion about challenges together with Ms. Greenfield today at school and she said that we do not have to challenge ourselves. Doing ok is just right. Plus she knows better than you!" Of course I smelled something fishy going on here. "I think not" I said. "Plus I am older than Ms Greenfield and I don't think that is what she said" "UH HU-UH!" answered little Miss Know It All.

Well, yesterday was my volunteer day and Ms Greenfield and I had a lovely discussion regarding this matter. What went down was this: Ms Greenfield was trying to explain to the children about challenging themselves in reading. She told the kids that if they pick a book that is way too hard is like lifting a very heavy weight, if they pick a book that is too easy that is like lifting a weight that is too light, but if they pick a book that is just a LITTLE HARD then that is just right. So when I told Mimi that I had spoke with the teacher and told her what she said, this is the look I got.

BIRTHDAY BLUES

Besides our neighbor friends Jess and Scott, dad and I are a rare breed up here in our neighborhood and town. Older parents with a young kid.

This afternoon I got together with my friends for a glass of wine before picking up the kids from school and the topic of discussion was birthdays. Apparently quite a few of us have January birthday. Now mind you, at 53 years of age, I am old enough to be the mom of some of these ladies and they all act like they are over the hill at 35! It was pretty depressing to listen to them talk about how old they are. Finally I could not take it any longer so I let them have it! Told them "You should all be ashamed of yourselves acting as if your life is over. Look at me! I'm 53 and still going strong. I think I'm doing pretty damn good for an old broad! Not only that, I getting ready to have another kid!"