Please endure the picture post.

Pedro say, "Please stop." How could I resist taking a picture of the South of the Border theme park. I don't know what the theme is - something like "Hi, our mascot is a short, fat, buck toothed Mexican, but hopefully no one will notice that it's slightly offensive, what with our awesome fireworks store."

Greg's brother, Paul, and Maggie in Philadelphia. This was our first stop. Paul doesn't have children, but he was mighty impressed that we do. He thinks we deserve medals for raising children (actually he thinks mostly I do, forget about Greg). Try to surround yourself with people like this. It does wonders for the self esteem.

Greg and Jane eating at some restaurant in Philadelphia. Could you just die over her happy expression? She was nervous because she wanted a Po' Boy sandwich but couldn't pronounce it and was worried we were going to make her try and tell the waiter what she wanted.

St. Bridget Roman Catholic Church in Philly. I should have taken a picture of the inside. It was gorgeous and my kids were in awe. We don't really have anything like that here where we are now.

Greg's mom. She scored points when I heard her tell Paul ,"I didn't realize that was Greg's wife, she looks like one of the kids." Come on, like I could let that one go untold. But really, don't I look divine in that dress?

New York State now. Route 23, on the way up to the Catskills for the day. According to some people you can see five states from this view. I'm really bad at geography, so I am not sure what those states would be, but I'm pretty sure one of them is New York.

Windham, New York - a lovely little town.

The Post Office next to the house where we lived when I was pregnant with Jane*. I used to go in everyday and talked with the woman working there. She stills works there. We went in to say hi and told her we lived next door 14 years ago and she said, "Oh, I remember you, you were really pregnant." I really was huge. People would routinely ask ,"Are you having twins?" It never bothered me because I'm not at all concerned about what people think of me. Totally secure.

The view when you stepped out our front door of the house we lived in, the one where I was obesely pregnant.

Another view, just down the street from where we lived. Talk about life in the boonies. Is there any wonder I got pregnant? And obese?

Again, about a mile down our street. Gorgeous. We were blessed to have lived there. Seriously - although at the time I thought it was awful.

Another blessing - my Nana who is 100. The girls are laughing because she had just asked them, "So, are you girls married?" And when they said no she said, "GOOD!" She was happy that day.

In Burlington now, Anthony with huge fish he caught.

I know, she really belongs in a magazine. I mean look at that hair! Trust me, she blended in Burlington where people are so concerned about the environment they've taken to not showering so as to conserve water. Sorry Burlington, you deserve that. Please, go take a collective bath. Please?

Sunset over Lake Champlain. Nope, as pretty as it is, I still haven't recovered from the general lack of cleanliness we saw there. We lived there for four years. I have no idea how I got used to it.

Token shot of Vermont and cows. This is what we saw when we woke everyday.

Back to see my family one last time. My sister's kids and mine.

Eighteen days of fun and I just realized that I didn't take any pictures of my sister, brothers, mother, father, best friend. That's a good thing. I was too busy laughing, eating, having fun, not cooking a single meal, not washing a single dish,not shopping for single ounce of food, not driving a single child to a single activity.What more could a mom ask for? It was good times, trust me.

* I had to go back and edit this. I originally wrote that I was pregnant with Maggie, but had to correct and say I was pregnant with Jane. What can I say, I've lost my mind. It happens.

Anthony and the grasshopper - and the window

I know, I'm always writing about Anthony. It's obnoxious, isn't it? It's just that he's so darn full of material and I know if I don't jot it all down it will get lost in my mind, and someday I won't be able to regale Anthony's own kids with stories about what a nice mom I was for putting up with him. Here is a close approximation of the events that took place on one recent spring afternoon.

Nurse Gail : "Hi Ann Marie, it's Gail. I have your son in here. He just ate a grasshopper."

Me: "Nope, that doesn't sound anything like Anthony. Are you sure it's him?"

Gail : "Yes, it looks like Anthony."

Me : waiting for her to tell me why she called me over this, I finally decide to say -"So, what's the deal, why are you calling?"

Gail : " We think you should pick him up. He may get sick."

Me: (What I wanted to say, but elected not to )- "Are you kidding me? It's noon. Me and the girls are eating lunch and then we're going to finish our math work and then we're going to relax and read, and if I have to pick up Anthony none of those things will happen. And I mean really, it was a grasshopper. He'll live, trust me. Have you ever seen Man vs. Wild, because Anthony has, he watches every chance he gets and I'm pretty sure this is where he got the idea from. That guy eats grasshoppers all the time and he's still alive. "

Me: what I really said - "Okay, that's probably a good idea, I'll be over in a minute."

Then I called Greg and told him Anthony ate a grasshopper and I had to go pick him up. He asked why and I told him they thought he would get sick and Greg said " You gotta be kidding me? I guess they never saw Man vs. Wild." I tell you, that show is a big hit in this house.

When I walked into the nurse's office to get Anthony I noticed he had been crying. I asked him what was wrong. That was when Nurse Gail informed me she told him how bad it was to eat a grasshopper, it could have been poisonous, and it was so wrong to kill an innocent animal. I have no idea when grasshoppers turned into animals, but anyway, it was at this point that I realized the school actually thought this was pretty serious and if I wanted to get out of there alive I was going to have to put on my fake face and pretend I thought it was serious, too. Many times I have a hard time being fake and I sensed this was going to be one of those times, so I said a quick prayer and tried to be as compliant as I could. And guess who walked in just after I said my prayer? His teacher and then the vice principle.

They were also flabbergasted over the fact that a nine year old boy ate a grasshopper and let's be fair, the kid didn't eat it, he bit it's head off and spit it out because it didn't taste very good. They asked him what was next, they told him killing innocent grasshoppers was wrong and mean, and then they asked my most favorite question of all - "why did you do this, what is going on in your life that would make you do something like this?" I think they were hoping this is when Anthony would turn on me and finally tell them all about the ritualistic killing we do on various insects in our backyard, but I train my kids well and he just looked at them with his gigantic, brown, tear filled eyes and said, "I did it because I'm a boy and boys do stuff like this."

I wanted to go over and do that whole fist pump thing and give him a big hug, but instead I stepped in and said, "well, I think it's time to go home, we don't want him getting sick right here in the office, that wouldn't be good", even though I was secretly thinking it would be a little good, considering they were making him feel like a sh*t heel over biting the head off a grasshopper.

We got in the car and Anthony was quite nervous. He thought he was in big trouble. He asked what his punishment was going to be. This is where parenting can sometimes be tricky. I teach my kids to respect authority, to do what adults tell them, to not answer back. I didn't want Anthony to know that I thought the school handled this wrong. Yes, it was foolish to eat a grasshopper, but some of the things they said to Anthony were even more foolish than what he did. I knew if I let him know I disagreed with the school it would lead down a slippery slope, one he would promptly tell his teacher about the next day. So I looked at him and asked him what he thought his punishment should be. He thought about it and said, "No computer for the week?" which I thought was perfect. Really, they did me a favor and I should have run back in and thanked them.

I wrote this post last night but never posted it. I got busy and forgot to hit publish. I turned the computer off and went into the kitchen to get Maggie something. I heard a smash, a sound like glass breaking. I turned around and looked out my kitchen window and there was Anthony, peering inside, looking at me with an expression that led me to believe he may have been the person responsible for that noise. And then I saw a golf club on the front lawn. Yes, he hit a golf ball through his bedroom window and he must have hit it pretty hard judging from the size of the hole that is now there. Well, there isn't a hole there now, there is a large amount of packing tape covering the hole, a lovely reminder that Anthony does always provide us with excitement and laughs galore.

Day before the trip

We're leaving tomorrow for our big summer adventure. As you can tell from this picture, Maggie started her big summer adventure a few weeks ago. Despite spending the entire week getting ready, nothing seems to have gotten done. In an effort to keep the house clean I thought about forcing my kids to eat over the kitchen sink, free of utensils, and dishes, and glasses. It's the way I eat on many days and it really does reduce the mess, but I wasn't sure they would go for it, so in the end I've just been trying to convince them they really don't need to eat more than once a day. I really want to come home to clean house and am willing to do just about anything to make it happen.

Yesterday the kids and I drove to Lakeland to drop our beloved dog, Buster, at our friend's house. I typically don't call Buster my "beloved" dog, but he did get hit by a car last week and so I feel the need to at least pretend I care about him. The car that hit him was going about 25 and slammed right into him. It was not the driver's fault. It was Buster's fault. Well, honestly it was Buster's owner's fault, and by Buster's owner I mean Greg. He's the one who agreed to get this dog one week after I gave birth to my last child. Have I ever mentioned that? Probably just once or twice.

Buster is a runner. That's the reason his old owners pawned him off on us, but we didn't know it at the time. He runs whenever he gets the chance and last week he got yet another chance. It was Anthony's last day of school and there was some chaos going on at the front door and Buster took advantage of it by plowing through Maggie and running like the wind. Then a car hit him and pretty much ended that fun. It was horrible to witness and unfortunately Anthony was with me and saw the whole thing. He cried pretty hard. I don't have any desire to ever hear one of my kids cry that cry again.

But immediately he calmed himself down and asked St. Francis to intercede and lo and behold, Buster was out of the vet's office by 4 pm that afternoon. It should be noted that the vet told us he sees this happen all the time; a dog comes in after being hit, looks okay and then dies within hours. But not Buster. He lives on, so all's well that ends well.

On top of dropping the dog off yesterday, my beloved husband,Greg, gave me a list of other tasks he wanted completed before we leave town. I typically don't call Greg my "beloved husband," but I enjoyed running around doing last minute things all week, so now I am feeling the love for him like never before.

We're headed to North Carolina tomorrow, to spend the night, and then on to Philly for two days to see Greg's brother and mother, then to Albany to see my family for a week, then on to Vermont to see some close friends and then we head back here. It should be fun. We have some big expectations and they better all be met, or I'll have to resort to writing all about it right here on the blog.

See you when we get back!

end of the school year

Anthony finished school last week. He had an awards ceremony on Tuesday, which he forgot to tell me about until the night before. That sums up Anthony's life. He forgets things. He forgets where he put his shoes, his backpack, his lunchbox, his meter, his pump, his clothes, his homework, his library books. He forgets what he did yesterday, or this morning, or ten minutes ago. Most delightfully of all, he forgets everything his dad and me tell him. He takes the phrase "live in the moment" quite literally.

Even though I had many things going on that day, I made sure to squeeze in the awards ceremony, because honestly, there are some things Anthony won't forget, and me missing that would be on the top of the list.The ceremony was interesting. There was a slide show, which was cute, and then the children read poems, which was not as cute as you would expect, because it turns out that 3rd graders do a lot of mumbling and much of what was said couldn't be heard. Anthony's poem was about bacon. If the slide show didn't stir up emotion in everyone then surely Anthony's tribute to the fattiest food on the planet did the trick. I'm sure I saw people wiping tears away when he was done.

What was most interesting about the ceremony was when the teacher, microphone in hand, announced that she would be singing a song to the children. I immediately grew uncomfortable and wanted to shout out, "wait, I didn't bring a blanket, what am I going to hide under when I cringe uncontrollably?" No offense to the teacher, but I can't help it, I'm a cringer. And the classroom was small and crowded and there was just nowhere to turn if things went bad. The one blessing was that my husband wasn't there to witness any of this. The teacher said she would be singing a song called, "I hope you Dance," by Leann Womack. I've heard this song many times. It is sappy in all the right places and perfect for an end of the year celebration.

She turned on the music and started singing and I decided to do the best thing possible, which was to stare at my son, who was sitting in front of me , so all I could really see was his profile, and what appeared to be much blinking. Excessive blinking is what Anthony does when he is either trying to fend off tears, or make someone disappear. I could tell the blinking was of the first kind. I thought to myself , oh my goodness, how is it possible that two of the most emotionally immature people have managed to raise a young man who is touched by his teacher's singing. Case closed, nature takes it over nurture everyday of the week.

After the singing, which I admit was not that bad, we moved onto the awards ceremony. Because this is 3rd grade they have to pretend life is fair, so all the children received one. Anthony got an award for creative writing because of his exceptionally good writing skills. In an attempt to kiss my butt, the teacher prefaced all of this by saying he got his writing skills from his mother. Remember that note I wrote to her way back about the beer cap? Turns out she must have liked it! Anyhow, the butt kissing worked. Who doesn't like to be bragged on in front of a bunch of other parents?

The ceremony ended, I checked Anthony out of school, and when we got in the car I asked him if he was bit choked up at the singing. He said he was, and that his teacher did an awesome job, and he was really proud of her because that must have been hard for her to do. Sometimes Anthony brings me to the brink of madness. This wasn't one of those times. This was one of those times when I just wanted to stop the clock and enjoy him in all his cuteness.

But alas, life does not stop, and since that perfect moment over a week ago, there have been hundreds of others that have left me near the brink. But thankfully blogging is here and helps me remember all the good stuff.

it's over - finally

Kate's baseball season is over. Finally. Truly. It's over.

Thursday's game was set to be played in Orange City, which is about forty minutes away. Greg came home after work and we all left and were about as cranky as you can expect after getting little sleep. Anthony was especially lovely. He begged not to go to Thursday's game. He ranted on about hoping that Kate's team would lose. He told Kate that softball was the most boring sport ever and he didn't even watch her play while he was at the games, so why should he even bother going. He seemed to take an inordinate amount of pleasure in telling her all of this. It's time like these that my heart melts and I know I'm doing a fabulous job of raising my kids. The one thing he had going for him was that I was too exhausted to make empty threats about all the ways I was going to punish him.

We got to Orange City and it was thundering and lightening. By the time it stopped, the field was soaked, so we sat there and waited and waited and around 7:30 it was determined that since it hadn't rained in Mount Dora we should move the game there. So we got in the car and drove forty minutes back to where we started. I was so tired that none of this seemed insane. The game got under way around 8:30. Kate's team won by a landslide. I wanted to cry great big tears of sorrow over the fact that we had another day of this, but twenty years from now, when I'm gathered around my kitchen table having Thanksgiving dinner with my kids and their kids, I didn't want to have to listen to Kate tell the story of me being hysterically angry over her winning her playoff game, so I decided to go right along pretending that this was all extremely exciting.

Friday night we drove to DeBary and shockingly enough, it rained. And the field was soak and we sat there and waited and waited and I tried not to have a meltdown. Greg looked at me at one point and said, "we're going to feel like idiots in six months when Kate decides she hates softball and never wants to play again." And I said to him, "really, is it really going to take you six months to feel like an idiot over this, because I kind of felt that way on Tuesday when I was driving home at mid-night."

The game finally started at 8:30. And we didn't even have to drive all the way back home to play. The umpire, or as Anthony calls him, the empire, made some atrocious calls which brought a certain amount of excitement to the game.There was absolutely no telling what he was going to call a strike. This fact made Kate actually swing at a ball after it had already landed in the catcher's mitt. If you aren't familiar with the rules of softball, I'll just say that you should swing while the ball is still in the air. Once it's in the mitt, there is pretty much no way you're going to hit it. Greg and I looked at each other in disbelief and then I realized I just needed to be thankful that we were one out closer to a full night's sleep. The girls tried their best but ended up losing 11 to 6, which wasn't bad considering that they were running on fumes and the officiating was the worst I've ever seen. I admit it, for all the insanity of this week, and for all my near breakdowns, I was sad they lost. Kate loves playing and loves being on a team and since I love her, I enjoy watching her do something she takes such pleasure in.

She was ready for it to be over though. On Saturday morning when she woke up, Greg was watching a college softball series and she said "ugh, get it off, I don't want to see another softball game until the fall." And Anthony, who was in the bathroom, but never misses an opportunity to be obnoxious yelled out, "I don't want to see another softball game, ever! And I'm not kidding!" Like any of us thought he was kidding.