Catching Up

A few blog-worthy things lately that I need to catch up on...

The Bake-Off
Ryan made (with some assistance!) a chocolate chip pizza pie for the Cub Scout Bake-Off last week. It looked good, tasted good, and even won an award for "Best Pie"! Ryan seemed to enjoy himself which is good. I must admit it was a hard process for me... first the seemingly never-ending debate about what to make. Looking through Betty Crocker, narrowing the list down from 10 to 5 to 3 to finally 1. Allowing him to measure, stir, pour, crack the egg... all the things I prefer to do myself because it's just faster and usually not as messy. But it was the Cub Scout bake-off, not the overly-controlling mother bake-off so I really tried to let him do most of it all while making it a pleasant experience. Overall, a success. It looked so good apparently that Ron volunteered to bring one to work on Tuesday. Which means on Monday I get to have the overly-controlling mother chance to make my very own.

2 Down...
Ryan checked out some audio cassette books at the library and wanted to listen to them last night. I had him get my 12-year old walkman, the bright yellow shock-proof one I got since I kept dropping and breaking my walkmans on the ship. This thing survived the Navy but the kids were apparently too much for it. I changed the batteries but nothing. No signs of life. No radio, no tape, nothing. That's one...

Next I headed down to the laundry room to pull out my old boombox. The one Santa brought for me way back in about 1985. Still works. I set it up in his room, got the tape started and everything is fine. For one and a half tape-lengths. Then for some reason it quit playing. It will rewind and fast forward but won't play. Hmmm... That's two...

How many more electronic devices will I be able to kill off this weekend?

Sick Kids or Alien Invasion?
The girls have been dealing with seasonal allergies this fall. They have been off the medicine now for a week or two. They still cough a bit but seems to be manageable. Ryan was sick before Halloween. Fever and a cough. Fever is long gone but cough still lingers.

They have been cranky. They have been cantakerous. Unpleasant. Disagreeable. Crying. Fighting. Basically not the loveable kids I used to have. So my question is this... WHY?

Is it a phase that they all just happen to be going through at the same time (independent phases, joint execution)? Is it because they don't feel well? Are they not getting enough sleep?

Someone needs to tell me what to do so I can fix them. Otherwise, I may be forced to leave them on the curb with a sign, "Free to a Good Home"...