Packing

There is still much to do before we fly off for five weeks of vacation in the land where Luke Skywalker's home planet in Star Wars was filmed and from which Hannibal embarked on his triumphant journey to Rome. It looks like we've got an apartment close to the beach for a couple of weeks, and then an apartment near H's family for another couple. I probably won't post much while there since the internet is sometimes slow and I am completely spoiled so don't have the patience for it.
But I'll return with pictures. (Though you know I may not post any of them here because I just don't get around to that very often.)

Loveliness

It's so nice to leave a job and have people say really nice things about you. Yesterday I thought I was going to lunch with two of the teachers at my old job, and when we got the restaurant several more were waiting for us as a surprise. They even gave me a gift- an 8gb flash drive, since I'd lost my drive earlier in the semester. At the end one of them gave a lovely impromptu speech about how much he'd loved working with me. I'm sure I'll see most of them around. It was just a nice conclusion and left me with a warm fuzzy glow. Later H showed up with the kids and moved me out of my office. So once I hand in my grades I'm all finished at that school.

mission aborted

The sleepover didn't go so well. It was fine until bedtime, but then it kind of fell apart. I went over and picked him up, but we had a lot of tears- part exhaustion and part disappointment, I guess. Luckily he seems to have finally recovered from it all and enjoyed his friend's birthday party today.

Summer semester's end

The semester is winding down- all short five weeks of it. Today was my last Creative Workshop class, and my teacher spoke generously about my work and me. This was uplifting since I got into neither show that I submitted to this summer and have been feeling a definite lack of art mojo. Yesterday I went in to speak with him about my insecurities, and today he let me know I shouldn't have those. And, he added that I had a good energy in the class as a person. I think I talk too much sometimes, but I'm willing to give feedback to the other students while some of them are very passive participants. The professor thought I'd make a good college level art teacher if I get my MFA. Well....
So the art is good.
And tomorrow is the last day of teaching for the summer, and at this college as I move back to my former place of employment beginning mid August. Once more I'll be packing up and moving boxes out. (Actually, H does all the heavy lifting.) This time, though, I'll be moving into a new office and with a much lighter heart than last August when I was rehired and had to move back into the office I'd vacated two months before. However, for all that I'm very excited about the move, there's a part of me that realizes I'm leaving a place that is growing in very interesting ways. It sounds like they are hiring 3 people (maybe even 4) to do what I've been doing alone for the past 3 years. This will allow for the program to really grow and it'll probably be very innovative, especially with the new leadership coming in as well. (A friend of mine from where I used to work and am going back to is coming in as the dean).
Finally, as a great ending to the day, Ali decided he should go to sleep in his own bed. We did have a little fussing about the ba, but I explained that boys with bas didn't go to sleepovers. And then he told me he was going to whine about it some more and did. He was sort of lying here (getting off the bed and then me threatening him and then getting on is sort of) and then Leila couldn't sleep so I told her to turn on her light and read. He thought that sounded fun so he went into their room to do that. Of course, she didn't like it. Finally we worked it out for him to leave the light on and her to sleep. When I went in a short time later he was fast asleep with the light still on, and she was profunda with a pillow over her head. If we can keep this up, I'll be sitting pretty.

Breaking the habit

Ali has used a pacifier (ba) since babyhood. We've been trying to talk him out of it, and he thought giving them to the ba fairy and getting a gift a good idea, but it never quite took. A few months ago he had to sleep without one as we couldn't find it, but I ended up getting him a new one, and then of course we found the old ones. Last week, however, we couldn't find any of them at bedtime. It was hard, but he managed to sleep without it. The next day his leapster 2 arrived from Amazon. This was fortuitous as we were able to convince him that this was a good swap for the ba. He agreed, and even signed a contract with Baba and James (aka Leila) as witnesses. It said- "No Ba." Now he generally asks for his ba once or twice before bedtime. He often renounces the leapster in the hopes that will get him his ba back. But the truth is, we don't know where the darn things are anyway. (Hopefully we don't find them). The newest ploy is to tell him he's now able to sleepover at a friend's because he doesn't use the ba anymore. And, with minimal fussing, he manages to sleep. Thank goodness! We thought we'd be prying it out of mouth when he went away to college.

Exciting

I sat down for dinner and told the kids how happy I was that I'd booked a hotel for us in Frankfurt for our 15 hour layover on the way to Tunis. (It'll be totally worth the money to have a place to rest for the day).
"Don't say we have a hotel in Germany," Leila says, "Because it makes my tummy really excited and I just ate."

Out of nowwhere, a few minutes later, Ali says, "It's not funny."
"What's not funny?"
"Nobody. Dogs are not funny."
"Why not?"
"Becaue they're not. Dogs are fun to play with."

Then I get in trouble for using napkins from little miss ecological.
"Don't use napkins. You should have handcuffs in your pocket. Well, usually fancy people have handcuffs in their pockets."

Campout

Ali decided that we should have a campout tonight, with hot dogs, and marshmallows, and soda. I told him no soda.
So at dinner time I cooked up the hotdogs and served everything up on the living room floor- even the soda. Leila ate everything, as usual, and Ali jumped up and down doing this and that, worked his way through the brocoli and corn chips and soda, but had to be cajoled into eating a few bites of hot dog. He was pretending that drinking the soda turned him into a t-rex- a nice one that came over and gave me a hug. And then he drank it again to turn back into Ali, and came back over to give me another hug. Leila was turning into a cheetah ("because we're in the jungle")by eating brocoli. I petted her newly shorn head and scratched her behind the ears as she purred.
I told them about going on picnics with my granny, who carried a kerosene stove to brew up tea or coffee even at brief stops. Leila said, "You must miss the time when you were a child."
I roasted the smores over the gas flames of the stove (Leila wanted to have a campfire, or at least pretend, but we never got to that.) While they were eating those, I stuck glow in the dark stars onto the ceiling so that the kids could pick out constellations as from their sleeping bags.
Then Leila read us a book by the light of our lantern (floor lamp, really). And we said our prayers. She thought it the greatest day ever!
(Before actually settling down for sleep my little technofiles had to watch a video on YouTube.)

Fire Snake

This morning when Ali's swimming teacher called for her students, he was "fire snake." He's stuck with this name for a couple of days now. It was even on his swimming report "Ali (fire snake)". His lessons are done, and he did okay but needs to practice the back float.
This morning he didn't put on his swim suit when I asked him to, and I forgot to check. So halfway there, at our donut stop, he exclaims, "My swimsuit!" He gets an earful.
Leila is on to the next level next week.
Ali likes to ask questions and then answer them himself. I've learned to just say, "I don't know."
"Why are butts are weird?" he asks. "I don't know," I reply. "Because they ARE weird," is his answer.

What the kids think about

"My boys are sitting here," Ali tells me. They are his imaginary friends. Leila has to have some, too, and I guess they are all squished into the back of the borrowed van I am driving, sharing seatbelts.
They have a lot of them- thousands, no google, they tell each other- competing even in this.
On Monday night we are headed home from the swimming fountains. "I don't like Ali," Ali tells me. "I'm changing my name." He changes it several times, finally settling on "Palm tree fly swim." The next day he is "fire snaky."
Leila just likes "James." It doesn't matter to her that this is usually a boy's name, and her grandfathers.
I have to call them by the names they tell me. Ali goes on and on telling them. I just want to get him ready for bed.
I announced that my name is "super mommy I love you." It sure beats hearing them say Mommy, mommy, mommy five times in a row.