these days

It's that time again. Every week or two I think I should update my blog but realize I have neither touched my camera nor had anything monumental happened. Instead you get some crappy phone pictures and stories about the boring things we've been up to.  

Eliot brought this note home from school last week. No, nobody is being held hostage. The children are merely requesting help from their parents to finish the class project they've been working hard on--installing a watering system for the plants. Save your sprinkling installation jobs. In no time at all Eliot should be well versed at all things sprinkler related. And no, she is not in some sort of child labor trade school. At least not that I know of...

The note sent home was a corroborated effort by some of the kids, Eliot's contribution was the first line, "Dear Mom and Dad" you know, the line you thought was written in Cyrillic. (Maybe her school is also a Russian spy school...) 

When I was given the note, her teacher specifically asked if Rocky could come as Eliot had been bragging about how good he was with tools. This comes as a surprise to us as the only tool we own is a plastic hammer she brought home from a birthday party. But come he did, and they installed the water system of three hallowed out bamboo shoots, hung at a slant with copper wire. So maybe you should just contract out that sprinkling system to a professional. 

 We found this lizard the other night on my desk. Wish I would've had this excuse 15 years ago, "Mom, my desk isn't cluttered, I'm just building a home for my lizard."

After getting sick of having Vi walk around looking like Cousin It until I got around to torturing her (doing her hair) I decided to give her the ole' home style bang cut.

They're only marginally crooked. She seems cool with it. 

 She must know it was one of my better bang cut jobs. It definitely could have been worse--in 4th grade I trimmed my bangs to centimeter length, it was a low point for me.

 If crooked bangs weren't enough, we've signed her up for swimming lessons. Don't be fooled by her smile. She hates swimming. We're about 5 lessons in and she no longer cries throughout the entire lesson. Now she just looks decidedly unhappy and if I get too close to the side she tries to make a break for it.

 We went to the park today and soaked up some weather and, as Violet likes to randomly face plant and lick the ground, probably some super germs. 

Having Violet walking has made both, Eliot and me, much happier. Eliot feels like she has someone to play with and I'm happy because Violet can do so much more on her own.

As I was taking these pictures Rocky said, "You know Vi looks a lot like Tommy Boy."

Hopefully it's just a phase...