A fresh start

Caroline told me the night before that she thought the first day of kindergarten was more exciting even than Christmas. Since then every night she asks me, "Mom, when do I get to go to school again?" and is always so thrilled when I reply, "Tomorrow!"

So she is loving it and we hear rave reports from her teachers via Savannah. The gym teacher told Savannah that she was "a treat" and that she sat with a full grin staring right at him the entire hour. This picture below she just got off the bus and is telling me that it was so easy and she didn't even have to write her name a single time. I have been scaring her all summer to get her to practice her name with stories about writing CAROLINE on every single paper. Labor Day was exactly that around here. We cleaned the shed out, worked in the yard, then some of us painted the scraped and painted the rusty old shed. Brent, Kennon and Savannah went to lunch. They finally talked him into soup, salad and bread at Olive garden if they agreed to go dutch. They have been insisting that they deserved a restaurant visit ever since Brent went to Red Lobster's Endless Shrimp and downed over 100 of their favorite things in the world. I ate 50 myself. I think I should've eaten more though because I woke up the next day still craving some coconut shrimp. Two of the other guys in the dental school friends annual shrimp contest ate just over 200. So we were eating light.

I didn't mind him taking off to lunch with the complainers Kennon and Savannah. Caroline and Camille thought putting on garbage bags and getting your own brush was it's own reward. Marcus was napping. Well, we hoped he was. He now spends most of his nap time running around his pitch black closet trying to escape. I built a wall out of tubs to keep him out of my bathroom. I usually find him every morning curled up with his "hippo deedee" behind the door. I decided to stop spanking him when after a week it was doing no good. He would run right out behind me. Spanking once every few months as a reminder worked perfectly for keeping my daughters in their beds, but marcus is requiring all new parenting methods. He seriously thought my three hard spanks on his bare leg were part of the fun nap game. So no more spanks for Marcus. I will just have to lock him up I guess. Then as soon as I got the kids out the door for the first day of school Marcus and I started in on this project. I am one of a very select group of housewives (at least from my investigations) who loves to paint rooms. I would redo the rooms at least twice a year if I could talk Brent into it. By the time they all came home from school the job was done and it was looking rather dreary compared to the happy orange room we were used to.

But dreary in a clean sparkly way. Orange was just yelling a little too loudly at me the last little while. It is now "wheat bread". I will post a picture as soon as I get it all rearranged. Rearranging furniture is another one of my very favorite things to do. Unfortunately I am stuck waiting on Brent. I insisted that the fireplace needs a new home on the other side of the room. He was finally talked into and now needs to do some "man work" that involving pulling tubes through walls etc.

Brent and I have been getting along so well lately. I think it all started when he was so easy going about my decision to paint and even went with me to pick out colors. Once we got to home depot he talked me out of pensieve sky (light blue) reminding me that the reason I told him I was painting is that we needed neutrality for the sale. I wanted that blue so bad though. I guess that's why I end up with a different color in every room of my house. I never want to go the safe route, I love change.

My favorite change right now is a quiet house for at least 2 hours a day while Marcus naps. I am savoring it this very instant and it is a beautiful thing.

I went to see my dentist this morning. He had a couple improvements he wanted to make on my teeth. We were just starting in on the first one when the staff came by and asked him if a young lady applying to dental school could assist him.

"Sure, no problem" , he said. But as she was out of earshot he whispered to me, "Should I tell her not to ask me any questions?"

The last time he filled one of my teeth his assistant was peppering him the whole time with, "What's that you are doing right now? How many teeth have you pulled? So how do you feel about. . etc " It was like having Caroline around and I know Brent and was sure that it was driving him crazy since he really needs all his brain power and isn't so good at thinking and talking at the same time.
Anyway, she came right back, and sat down and the first thing she said to him was, "Do you mind if I ask you questions while you work?"

A short pause . . . then Brent replies, "Sure, no problem." So I had a fun time once again, all rubber dammed and unable to chirp in, listening to him trying to keep up with her questions. He will have to lay down the law with his assistants once he gets his own place I guess.

No talking to Dr. Casper. He's working and needs full brain capacity