Preschool Heartbreak

Declan graduates from preschool in the morning and it feels like there's a vice around my heart. As a reaction to this, over the next few weeks, I will start hinting about a 3rd baby and Tim will graciously offer to divorce me and help me find a 2nd husband.

Birthday Shirts

It's birthday shirt making time again around the McRoot household. I don't remember where I got the idea but every year around their birthday, we go pick out a t-shirt and fabric paint and commemorate their new age. They look forward to it and start discussing months in advance what color they are going to get this year. Declan easily decided on dark blue a few months ago so we made his last week. I lay the shirt out and I put their name and age on it and they add the designs. Declan just likes to pile on globs of paint so I added the sun, moon and fish to fill up some space. They take a few days to dry so they are very impatient to wear them. Actually the shirt look very similar every year because I am not very artistic with paint and can come up with no original designs. The picture of Grace above has her wearing her 7 year old one. We won't make Grace's 8 year old shirt until July but she hasn't decided on a color yet anyway. It's looking like it might be orange this year but that could change. And of course once they are a year older they can never wear the old shirt again because it would be horrible for people to think you were a year younger than you actually were. Strange how that changes as you get older because if I made a birthday shirt for me it would say 28 on it and I would never stop wearing it.

I just noticed after I published this, that the 2nd picture of Declan makes it look like he has no legs but that's just because he is sitting on them. He did not want to cooperate with me.

I'm All Alone

My children have all been dealt with and I am alone in my house while the sun is still out. Of course nothing bad has happened to them. Grace is away on her very first sleepover and Declan goes to bed at 6pm and Tim is asleep too. You have to understand that with our opposite schedules, Tim and I have to operate like single parents. Usually if I have the kids then Tim is at work or asleep and vice versa for him. We don't have a babysitter since we never see each other so time by ourselves is rare. I don't quite know what to do with myself and I'm ending up doing nothing. I could waste some gas and go to the craft store to buy a bunch of things I don't need. I could also take a nap which is sort of a waste of this time but very necessary at the same time. Instead I'm just sitting on the couch feeling sort of strange because the house is too quiet. So since I should be doing something non-child related and I'm not, here is some proof of the kids newest toy. This new Mac laptop has a camera in it that lets you add effects to the pictures you take. Its sort of scary.

Double the trouble
Grace & Grandma
Our ray of sunshine

Why Do They Keep Poking Me?

So here is poor Peter the cat. I actually think he is feeling better since we started the insulin. He got into a wrestling match with our other cat so that is a good sign. His whole life has changed now. He can only eat every 12 hours when before he was used to having the bowl out all the time. We've been getting some confused and nasty looks from him over this. I have to give him his shot every night and, miraculously, he has cooperated with me. He's down to about 12 lbs from his normal 16 lbs of Maine Coon so he's not at his fighting weight. First off, I had to go to an actual pet pharmacy in Yarmouth to get all the supplies. Who knew such places existed and that they could take $100 from me so quickly. The vet gave me lessons and shaved a small patch of his back to make it easier. The shaved patch freaks Declan out and he is always trying to shut Peter out on the porch so he won't have to look at him. The needle is very small and goes in easily. He doesn't even flinch at this point. If this stuff works and he starts feeling normal then he might try to fight me. Tim hasn't done this yet and I don't know if he can do it. Medical stuff freaks him out. Peter seems to know that we are trying to help and maybe he's trying to help us out in return. Or he's just too damn old to fight.

Has It Been A Week?

How has a whole week gone by since my last post? Every night I meant to add something but I never got around to it. I've especially wanted to for the last 2 days but haven't been able to touch the computer since Tim has had those nights off. I'm thinking of calling that show Intervention to help separate Tim from the laptop. I seriously think if he had to choose between me and the computer in a fire, he would pause to think about it. My vacation finally came to an end much too quickly and now I'm starting my 9 days of working in a row. I especially hate working the weekends because I am alone in the building most of the day and get paranoid that there is a fire or a murder I haven't heard about and all the other stations are there and we are going to get our asses kicked. Enough of work. So anyway, last weekend was Declans 5th birthday(sob.. ) and we decided to take the Downeaster train to Boston and take the kids to the New England Aquarium. We've never taken the train down and it was on the expensive side but the kids enjoyed it. I would bring more diversions for them in the future-2 1/2 hours is an eternity to them. They loved the aquarium and all the fish in it. Declan would have taken home the sea turtle above if he could have fit it in his backpack. He is now in love with sharks and mantas. How can a boy be so deathly terrified of dogs and bees but stick his face right next to a shark? Grace loved the jellyfish and the exhibit that let you stick your hands in and feel the starfish. I had never been there before and thought the place was a little small and smelly but didn't share that with the kids. It was a long day and I was reminded how much I don't like Boston but the kids had an adventure. They were amazed that when we were riding on the T that we were actually in underground tunnels. OK, so I'm tired now so I'm going. Remind me in my next post to tell you all about learning to give my cat insulin shots.

The Grace & Declan Perspective

Santa brought Grace & Declan the Fisher-Price digital camera and they have been expressing their inner Annie Leibovitz ever since. We realized today that we hadn't downloaded it since last winter so here are some of their more interesting works. Its not a top quality camera so the photos have sort of a dream-like appearance. Its always good to look at the world from their perspective.





I can't believe my mom is letting me take her picture!



I hope Peter feels better. I'm sure this flash going off in his eyes will help him.



The view out the window on the way to pre-school. I could be one of those kid artists you see on 60 minutes being exploited by their parents.



A visit to the post office. Can you get arrested for taking unauthorized pictures inside a Federal building?



We're in training for the next Olympics.



Mommy sees a mess but I see endless possibilities.



These are my feet. Every year they get farther and farther away.

I'm On Vacation!

Today was the first day of my vacation. I don't have to go back to work until the Tuesday after next. After that I get to work 9 days in a row but I'm not thinking about that until then. I tried to get as much of my spring cleaning out of the way before this but I'm still finding a list of things I need to get done this week.
-Tim has to mow the lawn and rake it up so I can put in all the flowerbed edging.
-The dump now only allows 5 free trips a year for bringing in yard waste and we have accumulated as much as we could and we have to take the 2 rows of seats out of the van so we can take it in.
-The city budget cutbacks have eliminated future heavy trash week pickups so we have to put most of our basement on the curb. May has always been the worst looking month in Portland because of all the junk on the sidewalks for heavy trash pick-up. Strange Sanford and Son-like people would patrol the neighborhoods piling other people junk onto their trucks. It was sort of fascinating to watch and sort of gross.
-Whatever is left in the basement has to be gone over for my first ever garage sale this summer. I'm hoping to make enough to fill the gas tank in the car.
-I have all their baby stuff in the basement and I have to be tough and get rid of a lot of it. I have to go through the clothes to take in to the kids consignment shop.
-Declans 5th birthday is on Saturday so we have to figure out some family thing for that. The Downeaster train has a kids ride free deal going on so maybe we will go to Boston to the museum or Aquarium.
-Declans little birthday party is Thursday afternoon so I have shopping to do for that. I'm attempting a Lego cake which seems pretty easy from the pictures. Just bake a sheet cake, stick 6 cupcake on top, and frost it a primary color and you have a Lego block.

Somewhere in all this have to remember that this is my vacation and I should do things like read a book or do something I want to do. That might have to wait until my vacation in July.

Peter The Cat Update

So the official diagnosis on Peter after a very very expensive round of tests, is that he has diabetes. A normal blood sugar is around 70-100 somethings and he was up in the 600's. We have to spend the next week making sure he eats special, expensive diabetes cat food and if his blood sugar doesn't normalize then we have to start giving him insulin injections. The normal life expectancy after this is about 2 years. I hope the food works because injections do not sound fun and it seems hard to regulate a cat when he can't tell you how he is feeling. He had to spend the day at the vets so he is understandably all freaked out tonight. I got him to eat some of the food so I hope he is feeling better. Then he saw me putting away the cat carrier and he freaked out again and ran. He should hopefully calm down by tomorrow and we can start to learn to adjust to his new life.

Peter The Cat Is Sick

This is Peter the cat and I'm sorry these pictures don't do him justice. I'm such a bad cat mother that I had to go back to 2000 for any good pictures of the cats and I didn't think they would load. No coincidence that Grace was born in 2000 and we suddenly stopped taking pictures of the cats. Something is very wrong with him and he is going to the vet tomorrow. We noticed about 2 weeks ago that he was drinking a lot of water and the litter box practically turned to mud because of it. I know they are going to tell us its diabetes or kidney failure. Whatever it is it won't be good. I was brushing him tonight because I want him to look good at his appointment and I noticed that you can now feel his spine and his hip bones are sticking out. Not a good sign if you ever met Peter. Most of his life he has weighed about 16 pounds underneath the Maine Coon hair that made him seem even bigger. He is bigger than some of the dogs in our neighborhood. Tim brought him home in 1994 as a surprise. He had gotten hm from the shelter where he was taken after being found in an empty building. When we got him he was unbelievably tiny-he was the smaller than the size his head is now. We loved him right away but our other roommate didn't and we got into a fight and ended up moving out within a week so that was how important Peter was to us right away. He immediately started putting on weight and we didn't think he was going to stop but he finally did. He is the patient one with the kids. All of our cats are still sort of skittish around them like they are still not sure if they are supposed to be living here or not. We used to have 3 cats when the kids were babies. Wendy was the oldest but we had to put her to sleep about 2 years ago. She went slowly crazy as she got older and pulled all of her hair out and stopped eating and mostly hid. When she died I felt sort of happy for her because she wasn't having a good time. Peter has been the opposite so if he is sick somehow I think this will hit us harder. Owen is our other cat and even though he is 11 now he still seems like a baby. I always said that Peter was going to be one of those old crotchety cats that lived into their 20's. I hope the vet can tell us the same thing tomorrow.

Get A Life Part 2

I'm still tired 2 days later but here is another of my brushes with greatness. Don't get your hopes up-this is no way as good as meeting Patrick Dempsey who by the way is on Letterman now as I write this. I guess everything comes full circle because this is the story of how I met Chris Elliot. I also forced this meeting like I did with Patrick. Now does everyone know who Chris Elliot is? Please say yes because I will be very disappointed in you. He started out on the old Late Night with David Letterman and has been on everything since. It was about two years ago and he had just written his first book, The Shroud of the Thwacker, which is based on The Alienist which is one of my favorite books. I would link to all of these things but I have no idea yet how to do it. As any obsessive/stalker Letterman fan knows, Chris lives in Maine part-time in Cundys Harbor. He actually lives in Margaret Chase Smiths old house-please, please tell me you know who she is! So anyway I saw in the paper he had a book signing in Brunswick so I decided he needed to be a guest on our noon news. I did a quick Google search and called up his publicist who agreed with me that it was a good idea to have him on. So fast forward a couple of weeks and I am standing in front of the station waiting for him. I sort of expected him to show up with his people but he pulled up in his own car and got out carrying a cup of coffee. I brought him in and he said he needed to use the bathroom so I got to wait outside the door while he peed. I was strangely happy to do this. I brought him into the studio and they got him wired up for the interview. I was pretty much done after that-had no other excuse for bothering him. He was great on the show and I had gone through my old Letterman tapes and we used them for clips which I think surprised him a bit because some were really old. That's about it-the show ended and he shook some hands and signed an old Letterman book of mine which made him laugh because I don't think he had seen it for a while. I was supposed to get a free copy of his book from the publisher but it never came-not that I'm still bitter about it. Turns out he actually watches our station and his father(who lives in Cundys Harbor too) loves our Daybreak show. His father is Bob Elliot of the Bob and Ray comedy duo-please, please, please tell me you know who he is!