Stuck in my head

Hello all!

A bit quiet on the blogging front. Lots of photos and videoclips to share but no time to actual get to them. Some updates first!

Jenna and Kate are done with preschool for the year. Wednesday was their last day - they watched a puppet show by their teachers, then the kids performed some of their favourite songs for the parents. This was followed by ice cream (yes, at 1030 in the morning!) and playing on the school playground one more time before saying goodbye. This was Jenna's last year in preschool but I was not quite the emotional softie this time around I was when Emily graduated in 2010. The first time is always hardest, I think. Kate will return for her final year (and ours, as a family) in the fall. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye at the end of that year. But it is a while away yet.

Another consequence of school being done (for the younger girls anyway) is that I no longer have to do the 8 school runs per day, two and a half days a week. I felt so liberated yesterday that I volunteered to put up all the screens in our windows. Finally, some time to contribute to the house! Most days during the school term, it was a challenge just to get dinner on the table at the end of the day. And now I'm excited to  be able to do housework. Perspective is a funny thing.

The girls are almost done with spring swimming lessons, but we are planning to have them continue them in the summer. We are also looking at becoming regular visitors of the water park across the street. We've been looking longingly at its slides since we moved into the neighborhood, but we've always seemed to have only babies in our house. This year, though, we have girls - specifically, girls who love the water. I am excited. I get to be in an outdoor pool AT LAST. Never mind that I will be chaperoning children, not doing laps. An outdoor pool. OUTDOORS!

Jenna has two loose front teeth (bottom). She is thrilled and is already fantasizing about the loot she can expect from the tooth fairy. Emily, having walked the road before her, is full of ideas of what Jenna can ask for and getting Jenna all excited about losing her teeth.

"Maybe a Barbie horse!" says Jenna.

"More like $1." I say, practically.

"One time the tooth fairy left me a craft kit." says Emily, looking pointedly at me.

More updates later when I can share photos and videoclips (the kids call them movies).

Back to the title - I have Kevin Max stuck in my head. This does not worry me, because it's one of those strange but regular afflictions that have no adverse side effects apart from not knowing all the lyrics to the songs. The kids are used to this, and sometimes I infect them, so that, together, we are belching out random and disconnected snippets of verses and choruses in the car, the living room, the kitchen. It's quite frightening to the casual observer, but we have never attempted to hide the fact that we are noisy family, anyway. Oh, how we love music! And instruments! And jamming! But there is nothing quite as portable and enjoyable for multitasking as the human voice, so we use ours a lot while unloading the dishwasher, driving to the supermarket, and cleaning up our rooms. If I expose the girls to nothing else, they will at least get to experiment with as many genres of music as their parents have in their repertoires (and respective CD collections). Just the other day, I had to stop and grin, when I heard Kate sing Ella Fitzgerald. 

But back to Kevin Max. Long ago, there was a Christian band called DC Talk. Very cutting edge and not for everyone, especially folks who preferred the likes of Sandi Patty (also awesome). Now DC Talk had three members - two more visibly/audibly well-known than the third. It seems that, having just this week discovered that very talented individual, I'm living to regret overlooking him for the past couple of decades. Well, better late than never, and he's certainly making up for lost time by taking indefinite residence in my head.

Here's a videoclip of his cover of Bob Dylan's When He Returns:

Off to breakfast now! More soon.