Author: Robin Chartier

A rough day at school?

Don’t freak out — Calvin came home still in stage makeup from drama class. They’re in the middle of a costuming unit and have been experimenting with makeup effects. 

Isn’t it gross how it looks like his forehead is cut open? They use putty to mimic hanging skin. 
 
He said the “blood” tastes good . . . ew. Calvin: “Really — on the bottle it says ‘zesty lemon mint flavor.'” He said drama has been his favorite elective this year. Fake blood and stage fighting? Sounds like the perfect class for him. 

toy surprise inside

A friend and I went to Silver World today — she is heading home for summer vacation soon and was looking for a few gifts. Since our kids like playing together I told her I would show her where the shop is and we could make a play date out of it. 

Normally toddlers in a gift shop would be a bad idea, but in this case they 1) can’t really break anything since it’s all metal goods, 2) people here love kids, and 3) I’ve spent enough money in Deeter’s shop that even if they ran around touching everything, he wouldn’t say “Boo.” And sure enough he bought the kids mango juice and they played with all the metal figurines while my friend shopped. 


rolling a car along the floor


Those round things in the metal bowl are bells — they were having a grand time with those too. 

All different animals: frogs, camels, dogs, elephants . . .

I had no idea what this green wooden thing was, but it was sitting on the shelf next to some Russian nesting dolls so I thought it might be similar. 

until I turned it over and this snake popped out! Yes, I shrieked. Deeter heard me and laughed.

I almost bought it to have around as a practical joke, but I knew Lucy would hate it. She is squeamish around the boys’ rubber snakes even though she knows they are fake. 

I think it's that time again

When my shoulders and jaw start to tighten,

When little problems annoy me more than they should,

When I never have any good food left on the shelves and end up eating McDonald’s because that sounds better than canned green beans and tomato paste,

When I see every object in the house as “clutter” and have an overwhelming desire to bag it up and get it out of the house — even things that were useful only a week ago,

When the headaches come back (see point 1 above),

When my eyes glaze over and I’m no longer in the present, but continually refining all my To Do lists in my head,

When I go from not wanting to leave to wanting to hurry up and go,

. . . Yep, I’m almost there.

victory lap

Carter has been playing floor hockey as one of his after school sports. The Athletic coach put together a group of boys and took them to play in a unihoc tournament at the Sultan’s School. The TAISM boys did a great job — especially considering they’ve been practicing with hockey sticks and a ball and unihoc is played with a puck and shorter, rounded ended sticks.

The nice thing about the iPhone is my camera is always with me, but it really struggles in gym lighting. It would have been better to have my big camera with the zoom, but this is what I got. 


Snacking on the chapstick she found in my purse. Seriously, she puts it on her lips and eats it.


Carter is the blur in the gray shirt


Fighting for the puck

Unfortunately I was moving too slowly and I missed his shot, but you can see that the video starts just as he scores. 

 The team: 4th and 5th grade boys. Girls play after school hockey as well, but this was a boys-only tournament. They didn’t win any games (they played 4), but they improved as the tournament went on. 

  And they had fun doing it.