Genevieve at 6

At her 6 year checkup this week my pediatrician informed me that from 6 to 11 is the "easy" age.  So as we enter this golden age of ease, which I am sure is a relative term, here are a Geneiveve's stats.

Height: 48.5 inches
Weight: 46 lbs 6 oz (aka kid is wicked skinny and has a BMI of 13)
Best Friend: Nanan Drame
Favorite color: Pink
Favorite Food: Cake
Favorite Movie: Matilda (which for some reason she calls the Secret of Myrah for no apparent reason)
Favorite to be read to her: Matilda
Favorite book to read to herself: Bed Bugs (one of those early reader Bob books)
Favorite place to go on a Saturday: Tucson Children's museum
Favorite princess: tie between Cinderella and Belle
Grown-up aspirations: "Cave person" (aka someone who explores caves, when I asked her why she said because they are the only ones who get to go a see the cool things in caves like ancient drawings.... although it should be noted for the record earlier this week when her doctor asked her what she wanted to be she said doctor.... clearly this is not set in stone)
Weekly activities: Ballet/Tap, Soccer (at school) and Hula lessons
Major achievements between 5 and 6: buckles herself into her car seat (seemingly a small thing but makes my life easier), ties her own shoes, good swimmer, reads short simple stories (awesome!) and will just go to bed when you ask her to (thank god!)

Zingers: Happy Birthday

 This week at breakfast Izzy brought Evie a fruit leather that she found in the pantry.  Evie said thank you and the residential parrot Izzy said: "Thank YOU." and then as she walked away "Happy Birthday!"  It was hilarious, perhaps even more so because it sounded more like this "Tank yew, Hoppy Birtday!"

6th Birthday!

You only turn 6 once and even less common is turning 6 on the 6th and a Saturday.  All of these were used as an excuse last weekend to pack everyone into the little Fit (better gas mileage) and drive the 16 hour round trip to Disneyland to celebrate Evie's birthday.  It all started last Friday after Patrick's morning court hearing.  He made it home by 11 and we were in the car and on the way by 11:30.  The girls were champion car riders and we made it to Anaheim by 8 pm with only really one stop at a California McDonald's (mostly for the playground... my greatest hope is that someday someone will open a healthy place to eat or even just a place to eat where the food is good with equally fabulous playgrounds and I will be a very very happy parent).  We checked into our hotel and the girls were asleep by 9.  Patrick and I even were able to sneak out of the room for a few minutes and watch the Disneyland fireworks at 9:30, then we too went to bed. 

Bright and early on Saturday we woke up and jumped in the car for an early morning entrance to Disneyland and breakfast with Minnie.  Maybe it was the early rising and getting going (we were in the park by 7 am) or just the whole cartoon characters come to life thing but Izzy definetly had trepidations about the whole thing at first.  In fact for most of the breakfast whenever a character would come over to the table she would slunk down in her seat as to make herself invisible so they wouldn't harass her.  Poor kid.  Evie on the other hand was in 7th heaven with all of the attention and birthday wishes (the first thing she received when we got to the breakfast was a giant pin that said Happy Birthday).  Patrick too was pretty excited because he got to see Tigger again :)  By the end of the breakfast though Izzy was at least comfortable enough to see the characters while in our arms and even managed to join a dance party with some of them.

From breakfast we went to ride on the tomorrowland rockets because Izzy was quite intrigued by them and it was early enough so that we could walk right on.  She rode with Patrick and had a blast!  From there I convinced Evie that she was a big enough girl to attempt Indiana Jones with me and so the two of us ran off to try the ride, which also at this point had only a 15 minute wait.  As it turns out maybe 6 was too little for the ride because I am afraid I scar(r)ed her a bit because afterward she refused to go on anything but the little kid rides for most of the rest of the day. 

Aside from the Indiana Jones trauma the rest of the day was a blast for all.  We hit our favorites like the Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, tea cups (twice of course) and Its a Small World (2 times) and Evie got a chance to meet some princesses. 

While Izzy took a nap we watched a little show about Rapunzel and then later in the day she was awake for another show on Belle.  (I am not sure who enjoyed these shows more me or the kids... really, they were hilarious!)  We told Evie she had to wait until she was actually 6 to get a present (aka 5:06 pm), which was really just an excuse to not have to lug something around all day.  As it turned out what Izzy picked out was the onerous thing to carry, but man did Izzy love her larger than her gato pillow pet! 

 We left the park for dinner and then somehow miraculously made it until the fireworks at 9:30.  All told we spent 15 gloriously exhausting hours in Disneyland and then on Sunday woke up bright and early, packed the car and made it back to Tucson by 3 pm.   Whew!

House guest

When we bought this house it came with a few extras: a basketball hoop, some outdoor furniture, kitchen stools, a few house plants.... and a tortoise.  The final "extra" was only discovered last weekend when Patrick, using his newly-aquired-garage-sale-find leaf blower, found hi
m covered in leaves behind our trash can.  He stuck his little head out and didn't mind at all when I picked him up so he pretty obviously was a pet not a wild wanderer.  What is incredible to me is that he must have been living on his own devices for at least a year!  Given his location of origin we named him Oscar.

We moved Oscar to the other side of the yard because we had weeded and feeded the grass (bad for tortoises) and I proceeded to research what exactly you do with what I assumed was a desert tortoise.  We built him a little burrow per online instructions and blocked off access to the pool (after we discovered him behind the pool pump and realized he was more nimble and able to get through small fence places than we had thought).  That night was Evie's party and it just so happened that one of the dad's is the reptile curator for the Desert Sonoran Museum (how cool is that!)  He examined our little friend and informed us that this was not a sonoran desert tortise but a sulcata tortise who: 1) come from the Sahel 2) live to be about 150 3) is a 3ish year old boy and 4) will double in size each year until he is about the size of our fire pit and weighs around 200 pounds!  So it appears that we have a new pet who will outlive us and likely eventually out eat us.  (On the bright side once he is big we can move him to the grassy side and may never need to mow again)

His new local was pretty sparse so yesterday I took a spring break day with Evie and we went out to Desert Survivors to pick up some habitat and food for the guy.  We came home with 5 different native grasses, mallow, desert hibiscus, prickly pear, and other "goodies" to plant and see what he prefers.  Now I just have to hope that he doesn't eat all of his habitat before it has a chance to grow in!

6th Birthday Sleepover

For Evie's birthday this year I had originally intended to do something low key and inexpensive.  I managed to achieve the inexpensive (total expenditures ~$30 for pizza, juice boxes and cake) but low key it was not.  Originally it was to be a sleepover with one or two friends, however, Miss Chatterbox talked about her exclusive sleepover to everyone at school (which I know was to be expected, I am perhaps not that naive) so I felt like we'd better invite the whole class.  Lucky for me that meant at max 8 kids.  Perhaps lucky for me 3 did not show so I only had to contend with 5 crazy 5 and 6 year olds, who really in all fairness weren't that crazy.  I coped by letting them all know the rules: 1) No screaming in the house (pretty reasonable I think) 2) Try your very best to not run in the house (I am an optimist but not as previously mentioned totally naive) 3) Go to bed when we tell you to (OK so I didn't expect that to work but I had to try) and 4) Thou shalt be nice to the little sister (that one was the only hard and fast rule, and fortunately the only one not broken during the night).

The sleepover went something like this:
5:10 - Kids start to arrive, immediate sequestration in Evie's room to view current collection of Barbies and Cabbage Patch Kids
5:30 - All kids present, start cooking the pizza
5:45 - Pizza and (many) juice boxes served on outside patio while adults chat in kitchen.  All is well...

6:15 - Cake (complete with 6 candles) sung about and served
6:30 - All parents have now abandoned the premises (except Patrick and I) and children have ingested much cake and juice (well really most just ate the frosting off of said cake)
6:45 - Freeze dance party in the living room. 

7:15 - Sugar has been (mostly) danced from little systems.
7:20 - Patrick puts Izzy to bed.
7:30 - Request costume change to PJs, request was mostly obeyed.
7:40 - Send girls to the TV room to watch Brave, start popping massive amounts of popcorn
8:00 - Patrick and I bring out three mattresses and a bunch of blankets to the living room to make comfy sleeping arrangements.
8:30 - Gaggle of girls mostly over watching the movie, start to play with movie as backdrop.
8:40 - Gaggle of girls totally over watching the movie and decide that wrestling over the popcorn bowls and veggie tray the best course of action.
8:41 - Popcorn and veggie tray sufficiently strewn around room.
8:42 - Declaration of bed time nigh
8:43 - Turn off the movie that is now totally ignored.

8:45 - Send all girls to bathroom to brush teeth, one minor meltdown over the lack of a Hello Kitty toothbrush that was certainly there just hours ago.
9:00 - All girls in living room with marginally cleaner teeth and mostly wearing PJs.
9:01 - Begin reading the bedtime story Princess Bubble.
9:05 - Still on first page of story because of questions and requests to see the pictures, just one more time.

9:30 - Complete first book, going on record for the longest reading of a 10 page book ever.
9:31 - Start reading second book with stipulation that there will be no extra picture displays and please hold your questions until the end.
9:45 -  Finish second book and proclaim good night, sleep tight. 
9:46 - First report from one child of misbehavior by another, accusations are investiaged and substantiated, first warnings provided.
9:48 - Second report from one child of misbehavior by another, accusations are investigated and substantiated, second warnings provided.
9:50 - Third report from one child of misbehavior by another, accusations are investigated and substantiated, child in question removed from crowd, tattling child requests to be removed from chaos.  Misbehaver, who is clearly overtired and distraught, brought to our bedroom, tattler given a place to sleep in Evie's room.
9:54 - Clearly hear Evie making chaos in living room, bring her to our room too.  Set about going to sleep with 2 small children in "beds" on either side of our room.
10:05 - All quiet in Chateau Lacroix.
10:10 - 6:00 am - Everyone sleeps (I am so not kidding! It was an Easter miracle.)
6:00 am - Izzy wakes and begins the process of ensuring all others in house are awake.
6:15 - All kids now awake and eating breakfast.
6:16 - Coffee made, morning is looking possible.
6:20 - Regret decision to not have kids picked up until 9 am as it is almost 3 hours away and I have nothing planned.
6:30 - House is getting loud.  Offer the option of a Sunday morning cartoon, offer is accepted by 4 of 5 girls.
7:00 - Interest has waned in TV, chaos is again brewing.  Try to think quickly, will need more coffee.
7:05 - More coffee brewed.
7:06 - Decide to take girls on a "treasure hunt" in the wash behind our house. Declare my intentions to them and request they get dressed and shoed.
7:15 - Make request again.
7:20 - Make request again.
7:30  - All girls dressed and outfitted with brown paper bag for any "treasures" they find.
7:35 - Journey into wash, first treasure found... a white rock.
7:36-8:00 - Walk through wash, many treasures encountered including: christmas light bulb, old plastic dog toy in the shape of a bear missing only one leg, creostote bush, many many rocks, bones (of a cow I think...who knows how those got there) and cats claw
8:00 - First two girls decide they are finished with their treasure hunt request to return to house (I will note for the record that these were the two who came to the party wearing "heels" not quite wash adventure gear... I am afraid footwear hindered their fun)
8:20 - Remainder of girls tire of "treasure hunt"  with 40 minutes to spare Patrick gets out the power wheels mini-cooper

8:20-8:50 - Much play and hazard trying to teach five 6-year olds how to drive said mini cooper while not crashing into anything or anyone, including small little sisters.
9 ish - Parents arrive and I feel a great sense of accomplishment having not only survived but enjoyed my "first" sleepover experience!