Eins: I wasn’t feeling well this morning so Khai brought a guitar in to sing me a song (he knows that makes me smile). He then brought me his three favorite bears to snuggle with. Fast-forward about fifteen minutes, and he has enlisted Max to help bury me in 17 stuffed animals– they counted. “So you will have LOTS of snuggles.” I do love these boys.

Zwei: Years ago, we bought The Neverending Story on DVD to save until the kids were old enough to watch it. Today was the day! It got four thumbs up, though Khai thought it was too long. It had been years since I last saw it, and wow, those are some grade-A special effects! Ok, not so much. But I still really want a luck dragon.

Drei: Technically, this happened yesterday, but there is about a six-foot-tall hole in my kitchen wall! Terrific, yeah? Josh played handyman and ripped into the drywall so he could toy with electricity. Then he climbed up into the attic and worked his magic– now there is a place to hang a light in our dining area. Guess I’d better do some shopping… I haven’t found THE light yet.

We have a busy weekend ahead of us and then Khai is going to a day camp next week. Max will go the following week. It’s going to be nice to have a bit of alone time with each of my boys! We don’t get much of that.

Today was the boys’ first day of summer break. Terrific and terrifying all at once.

Lots of rain, great clouds and a cool breeze! Love it.

Josh and I watched The Science of Sleep, starring Gael García Bernal. Quirky, interesting, and beautifully done.

Predictions of terrificness for tomorrow: yoga class, a playdate, possibly meeting up with my sister.

Because I will forget to post these if I don’t do it right now.

ZOMG, programming for kids. Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.

I will show this to Max tomorrow and he’ll officially take over the world next week sometime. Khai will figure it out soon after he’s reading and hopefully they will rule peacefully together, because I’ve seen them fight and it’s not pretty. [via ParentHacks]

For Eiwe: Last fall, AskMetafilter had a thread entirely dedicated to computer pranks! There are some good ones in there, and even more in the LifeHacker post in which I found the link.

For Matt: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW! Because we love you, we did NOT order you a banana cell phone cover. Instead, you will receive something much more fruity next week, well after your birthday. You knew we were time disabled, right? Yeah. Sorry. But HEY! Happy birthday! And no banana cell phone cover!

Amazing circuitry sculpture by Theo Kamecke. Pls send winning lottery ticket. Kthx. [via Metafilter]

Ok, I have to get up and finish cleaning now. My sister and Steve are on their way and I’ve not yet cleaned the bathrooms. If nothing else gets done, at very least the bathrooms must be clean when people come over. Amiright? Josh thinks I’m crazy. And I am, but really, clean bathrooms are a MUST because I have two little boys. Enough said.

So, I really meant to hit up the Three Terrific Things Thursday, but I started folding laundry and then abruptly decided that sleep was necessary. It was a good day and I shall commemorate the highlights here:

1) An electrician came out to give us a quote on adding overhead lighting in our dining area. This means that we will actually be able to see our food while eating. And also, that this new kitchen thing is for real! The ceramic tile people have already been out to measure, and the cabinet installers come tomorrow for measurements… again with the omigod it’s finally happening!

2) The boys and I made baked apples for our snack. Sooooo gooooood. Like little apple pies. This one definitely goes in the super-snack repository. (We added cinnamon along with the brown sugar for extra apple-pie-ness.)

3) I’m just going to combine three things into one here, because I’m the mom and I said so. I grilled steaks for dinner and they were nice & tender. My brother called! Just to talk! I love that. And last but not least, my hubby came home. I love when the kids wake up in the morning and realize he got home while they were sleeping– just pure joy and happiness.

Ta-daaa! Lots of terrificness happening in the midst of the chaos. It keeps things interesting.

And to think, he’s never even been on a real roller coaster.

Last week was chock full o’ crazy and this week isn’t looking much better so far. Apparently, my coping mechanism is to make lots and lots of lists. Then, assuming I don’t lose said lists, everything gets done and only a few things fall through the cracks (which they always do). Oh, and I am trying to remind myself to breathe deeply and often.

My kids give the *best* hugs. I think they learned that from their dad.

It’s only Tuesday, and already it has been quite a week. Can we declare tomorrow to be Saturday?

Yesterday, I got my hair cut — between 8-10 inches of hair, gone! I had actually planned to get it cut really short (like the picture I posted), but the hairstylist said that because my hair is so fine it would be hard to keep it from going flat even with a lot of product. So I went with a bob instead. I may go back in and have her add some more texture… not sure yet, I’m still getting used to it. It feels so much lighter.

Oh, and we ordered kitchen cabinets, flooring, and the countertop! FINALLY. And we didn’t even argue about it, which had become a tradition in our kitchen remodel discussions. I’m so glad to have the remodel underway at long last.

That brings me to today. Today was just not pleasant at all. I had to get a tooth pulled, and on the awful experiences scale, it was right up there with the spinal tap I had a few years ago. The nitrous? Couldn’t even tell it was there. Bleehh. I won’t go into details, but it was just really, really, really awful. Eventually I will be getting an implant to replace the tooth– it was supposed to be a root canal and crown, but they found that I’d need crown lengthening. That would not only have added another $1k to the price tag, but also lowers the success rate of the root canal by about 20%. So, in exploring all of the options, I decided on an implant. Fortunately, it’s a tooth toward the back of my mouth, so it won’t show. :) On the bright side, this stage is done, and within six months or so, I will be able to chew without pain! Seriously, it had gotten so bad that eating rice was painful.

The kids have been so careful and gentle with me. They’re so sweet. Josh has been taking care of all of us, and I’m so glad he could be here. I kind of feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. It hurts.

Khai turns four next week. School ends on May 23. Time is zoooooooooming by.

Are you sick of me writing about my kids yet? Yes, I do have a life outside of my kids… after all, I clean for hours and hours every day, and I cook, too! I even leave the house sometimes, like for the toning and sculpting class I just finished at the gym. OUCH. The giant sign on the wall tells me that It Hurts Because It Works, and they wouldn’t lie to me, right?

So! More amusing things about my kids! (Maybe it’s only amusing to me?) Before breakfast this morning, Max came to ask me a very earnest question: “Mommy, when I look at how Grover’s name is spelled, it looks like it should be GrOOver.”
I explained the double-o phenomenon and the effect of the E on the sound of the long O… at which point he nodded very seriously. “I see. But, you know, he does GROOVE a lot. That’s probably where they got his name.”

Khai has been asserting his individuality and it is the most important thing in his world right now to do everything his own way. Like his hair. I keep finding him in the bathroom, floor and shirt soaked from trying to make his hair all spiky. I’m going to have to give him some hair gel, because he did this five different times the other day. “It won’t stay crazy!”
He has also become attached to his yellow rainboots, and wants to wear them all. the. time. I figure this is all just practice for when he’s 15 and wants a green mohawk to wear with his larger-sized yellow rainboots. And probably piercings. With tattoos or tutus or both. Yay, parenthood!

Earlier, Max and Khai brought me a Mozart CD and asked me to play it in my laptop so we could all listen to it. I turned it down a bit, and Khai got offended.
“Mom! I can’t hear the Moz!”
Which of course, came out “tha motes”. Heh!

The boys got their very own library cards after school today, and you’d have thought it was Christmas Day plus a birthday all rolled into one. They were SO EXCITED. Max has been reading Encyclopedia Brown books, has started a Choose Your Own Adventure, and just now sped through nine chapters of a Magic Treehouse book. Next up? Maybe some William Gibson? No, I know. “How to Build a Space Shuttle Out of Household Appliances,” just like Badger in Better Off Dead.

Khai is more into the I Spy books but also likes for me to read the Magic Treehouse books to him. His reading skills are growing, but he’s not quite up to doing big books by himself yet. I’m happy to read to him until then. Although, please, someone needs to make the Elmo and Thomas the Tank Engine books disappear because they are slowly sucking my soul away each time I read them. Which is too often.

Snacktime. My kingdom for a replicator.

{p.s. Thanks for coffee this morning, Robin!}