Now There are THREE Middle Schoolers in the House

The Youngest Boy (who recently gave me the green light to once again mention him in this space) has just left his elementary school days behind him. In September, he'll be movin' on up to the big middle school to join his elder siblings who'll be entering the eighth grade.

How this will work is anyone's guess as all three of them haven't been students in the same school before. (The Youngest Boy once attended pre-school in the same building as his elder siblings but there was no interaction between the pre-schoolers and the rest of the school population.) Will it go smoothly? Will there be resentment? Will the "vigorous" disputes the two boys have here at home spill out into the middle school hallways?

The three Picket Fence Post kids have quite varied personalities and don't really resemble one another much. One's quiet but determined, one's also determined but gregarious and the talkative one just collected an "award" for having the "best sense of humor." (A future Robin Williams-esque class clown?) Two play soccer and basketball while the other plays hockey and lacrosse. Two participate in bands at school (The Youngest Boy, a percussionist, joked to The Elder Boy that he's coming after his spot on one of the middle school bands) and one is active on the student council. Two are utterly addicted to video games and one is obsessed with voraciously reading books and watching Make It Or Break It episodes on my iPad, usually surrendering the device to me, under extreme duress, with .5 percent of its battery remaining.

So when The Youngest Boy walks into the middle school as a sixth grader in the fall, I hope he'll be able to carve out his own niche there and not simply morph into another incarnation of The Eldest Boy or The Girl, albeit with wildly curly hair and omnipresent sports jerseys.

Bringing Forgotten Items to School . . . When to Stop?

The call came in at 7:35 this morning, just as I was sitting down to the kitchen table, a cup of hot tea in my hand, ready to read the newspapers.

The Girl: Mom, I forgot my sneakers and I have gym class first period.

Me: Yep. I see them. You really want me to bring them to you? Now?

The Girl: Please?

Me: (Paused for a beat) Okay. I'll bring them right over.

This is not the first time this has happened this school year. One morning, after I'd asked all three kids if they had their lunch money, I got a call from the twins asking me to bring lunch money down to their school otherwise they wouldn't be able to have lunch that day. I've also been asked to bring in homework, a textbook and gym clothes.

I feel compelled to note here that the Picket Fence Post kids are pretty self-sufficient in that they make their own breakfasts on school days and pack their own school lunches. Actually, the 12-year-olds pack their own lunches and we're teaching the 9-year-old how to do it, something he proudly said he did this morning, though The Spouse and I suspect he packed himself a Nutella sandwich as opposed to a Nutella and peanut butter sandwich, but we didn't really think that was a huge deal so we let it slide.

That being said, when do I stop this practice of rushing the kids' forgotten items to school for them? If I have a business meeting or conference call or aren't at home when the call comes in, then I wouldn't run the items over for them. But if my work schedule is flexible and I have the time to do it, I generally oblige them though I'm beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't any longer.

If The Girl gets reprimanded and marked down by her gym teacher for failing to remember to bring her sneakers or her gym clothes, perhaps that would prove to be a better incentive for her to remember those things the next time, especially when Mom won't bail her out any more.

Do you bail out your kids like this?

Notes from a Snow Day: Ice Rink, Movie Surprise, Chicken Stir Fry & Max in the Snow

Hey, What's This? Could It Be . . . an Actual Skating Rink? In Our Yard? YES!!!

I present to you . . . the ice rink as the foot-and-a-half of snow that fell from the sky since early this morning was being shoveled off of it.

The rink is brought to us by many, many hours of hard work and loving maintenance by The Spouse for his three children.

This week, I've added "buy skates" (for me and The Eldest Boy) to my "To Do" list this week.

The Spouse, who broke his wrist last year while skating on a public rink, is still shying away from skating, in spite of this great effort.

Eat, Pray . . . Whoa!!!

While the males in the family were snuggled up in front of the fireplace this weekend watching NFL playoff games, The Girl and I retreated to my room to watch the PG-13 rated film Eat Pray Love on DVD.

I'd read the book, so I figured that there might be one questionable scene near the last third of the film when the main character Liz is in Bali, which might require fast-forwarding or for me to mute the TV while The Girl averts her eyes. While I waited for Liz's relationship with Felipe, the man who would become her spouse, to commence, I totally did not expect a twentysomething male to drag Liz down to the waterfront and suddenly strip naked as he was trying to entice Liz to go skinny dipping.

Both The Girl and I shrieked as his butt was in the center of the screen and I hit, "Stop." The irony is that when Felipe and Liz were about to physically commence their love affair I suggested that The Girl go fetch a snack from the kitchen, only there was nothing she couldn't have seen, no nudity, no sex.

'Delicious' Chicken Stir Fries

More irony . . .

Whenever I pull out my wok, the Picket Fence Post kids roll their eyes. They're not fans of anything I might create inside of that thing. I've tried making them sweet stir fries, garlicky ones and even plain, soy sauce-based ones. But no matter how I prepared a stir fry, the kiddos usually take one bite, wrinkle their noses and wind up having cereal for dinner while The Spouse and I eat what I made.

Unless, of course, The Eldest Boy and The Girl happen to be the ones who made the stir fry. They're both currently taking Home Ec in their middle school -- which has been relabeled with the politically correct moniker, "Family Consumer Science" -- and in the past week they've both come home from school with a container of a chicken, vegetable noodle stir fry that they'd made. They were absolutely delighted with their creations and gobbled them up while I watched, amazed.

My new plan: The next time I pull out the work, I'm also going to pull The Eldest Boy and The Girl into the kitchen with me so the "experts" can show me how it's really done.

Cute Max Snow Pic

Max the dog -- who still spends much of his time rooting around the house looking for non-edible items that he can eat or gnaw on (tissues, dryer sheets, ball point pens, socks, etc.) -- was startled when we let him out onto our deck this morning and the snow was nearly as high as he is tall. He tried pushing his body through the snow, but stopped after traveling only a few feet and tried to get back into the house. (If snow was up to my eyeballs, I'd want to retreat too.)

However once The Spouse shoveled out several pathways for him, he romped around his little paths as though he were in a hedge maze. 'Twas very cute. The wet dog smell he has now that he's drying off, not so cute.