The cook strikes again – getting more resourceful all the time

This morning we had a "milk emergency" (according to Reed) and didn't have milk for breakfast cereal. I told the kids they could have yogurt, or toast, or fruit, or oatmeal or maybe make some eggs. I was upstairs teleworking and heard dishes clanking around and figured it was Amy. But it was Reed. He'd gone online and found a recipe for scrambled eggs.

And he scrambled up four eggs for himself, and ate them all - growing boy, I guess!

Chore time

At the start of every school year (and sometimes at mid-year), we review the chore assignments and make some adjustments. This year was no exception. We decided to continue with the even/odd dish assignment days (leaving Reed with odd days, which he hates since sometimes there's a 31/1 and he has to do dishes two days in a row) and with switching off weeks mowing the grass (this was a new chore for Amy after she turned 12). We moved Reed's dog walking assignment to the morning before school, since he leaves so late (bus at 8:44) and then give Amy a new dog walking assignment for after school, since she's the first one home. We're continuing with Reed putting out trash/recycling on Thursdays and plan to do our best to actually get Amy to put the trash out on Mondays (seems to get forgotten more often than not). Reed feeds the dog and Amy (mostly) feeds the cat. That's about it. Oh I think Amy feeds the fish too. (No one pays them much mind in general.)

Each kid is supposed to bring their laundry to me on Wednesday mornings, but that's as far as I've gone with making them participate in laundry. I know I can't put that off forever, but for now I just do the whole family's laundry because I know what will happen - if they have do their own, they'll put laundry in the washer, then forget about it (it's all the way in the basement, after all) and then every time I go to wash, there will be a washer full of mildewy-smelling clothes already there. Heck, I know that happened when was a grown up living at my Mom and Jim's - it's pretty easy to forget the laundry when it's two levels away. So I just continue to hope that maybe they'll want to start doing their own laundry (yeah, right!) or I will finally draw the line then they're in their senior year.

One decent thing I have taught them is to make and use a grocery list. At this point they're pretty good about writing things on the grocery list if they use the last of it....not perfect yet, but not bad. That's a good lifelong habit - so much easier to write things down than to just try to remember them!

We have a cleaning crew that comes every other week, so none of us does any real "housework" like changing the sheets, cleaning the floors, vacuuming, or scrubbing toilets. We struggle with that a little...how will our kids know how to do these things when they're on their own? Well I guess they'll have to look it up on YouTube. It's another thing we're punting until they're closer to being on their own. Not the best plan, maybe, but if the alternative is all of us spending our weekends cleaning, then I'm okay with how it's currently going.

Hopefully we'll have two relatively responsible kids in the end, who can take care of their own houses.

High school? WHAT?

Sent the kids off to school yesterday. Ninth grade for Reed and seventh grade for Amy.

I can hardly believe we have a high schooler, and Amy's mid-way through middle school. Time flies!

Amy was super excited to get back to school, especially since we missed the school's event where kids could bring in their supplies and locate their classrooms. She has friends in several classes and her teachers seem nice, so far so good.

Reed was nervous about the jump to high school. I asked him what he was worried about and he said "I'm afraid I'll mess up" - just a general kind of anxiety. I assured him it really isn't much different from middle school and he'd handle it just fine. And so far so good, other than issues with the bus (which showed up 10 minutes before it was supposed to, and is very overcrowded). Classes seem okay (other than getting a writing assignment in English on the first day) and he's got friends in a few classes and "the whole gang" at lunch one day.

Whew. Summer was a short one, doesn't seem like it could possibly be here already!

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

For her birthday, Amy asked for this "Heavenly Help-Mates" shirt.

Well I certainly have no idea what this is about. Evidently it's related to the Flash comics. Not that this description really helps me, but....

Become an official member of the prestigious Heaven Help-Mates with this beautiful, hand-photoshopped shirt! Now it's not just Mopee who gets to be an all-powerful entity that controls anything and everything in the multiverse.

She also has this purple "SPQR" shirt.

This is a little more understandable to me, it's related to the Percy Jackson series of books that Amy loves, The Heroes of Olympus, by Rick Riordan. That much I knew! And then...

SPQR is an initialism from a Latin phrase, Senatus Populusque Romanus, which was the motto of the Roman Empire and translates to "The Senate and People of Rome".

So she has these shirts and pretty much no one knows what they're about. Or they're like a secret decoder ring to find "her people" who know what these things are. I've heard a couple of people mention her Camp Jupiter shirt, but so far none who 'get' her Flash shirt. But that's how she likes it! And it's part of what makes her her.

Then one day I got a package in the mail. It was a t-shirt I ordered...

And I was so excited! The shirt is for a podcast I listen to, Pod Save America (which is hosted by former Obama staffers). And I also realized that few people would 'get' my shirt. But I also like it that way!

So I guess we're kind of two peas in a pod. (GET IT?! podcast pun!)

Shrek-tastic!

Amy decided she wanted to attend a drama camp at a high school in Leesburg. It was a 2-week program that culminated in one production of the show – Shrek the Musical Jr. It was challenging proposition for us to get her to/from Leesburg, but we managed it!

There were 30 kids in the camp, but Amy was the only one who was interested in technical theater. The camp was really well run, though Amy didn't get to interact with the other campers a whole lot. She spent her days with the high schoolers who'd volunteered to help with the technical stuff. They painted signs and made props, and worked on the lighting and sound. Seems she got to observe a lot of that stuff, which was new to her.

On the night of the show, her job was to manage all the cast microphones. That meant mounting the mic pacs somewhere they couldn't be seen, and moving them between people since there weren't enough mics for all the cast members.

The show turned out way better than we expected. They crammed a whole lot of preparation into those 10 days of camp, and they were terrific! Totally smooth production, no flaws that we could notice. Afterward, we learned that her school's drama staff (Mr. K and Ms. Reardon) were in the audience as well...they were scouting the show because they plan to do the same one in the spring. That was a nice surprise to find them there, and for Amy to be able to tell Mr. K about the new skills she's learned. She's really hoping to be stage manager next spring!

After the show, she was so jazzed and talking a million miles an hour. It's so great to see her so excited about something!! She's only sad that she's got to wait all the way until spring for the school production to do it all over again. We're very proud of her hard work and dedication!! She's definitely found her "people" in the drama crowd, which is awesome.

Lead Student Technician!

"It's a little small, don't you think?"

As I said, Reed's been baking all summer. He's back at it again today, and can you believe he just complained that the bottle of vanilla I bought is too small. We had a Costco-sized bottle before, this one is grocery-store-sized. So this is what it's come to. The baker needs jumbo sizes at all times, evidently. LOL

And he's also still texting me at work to ask if we have ingredients for a recipe. I want to say "I don't know, how about you ask someone WHO IS IN THE HOUSE, like maybe yourself?!?"

But we've all enjoyed the treats. :)

And he's even made dinner a couple of times, which is what I'm really rooting for. He made tacos one night and veggie chili another (though I had to be the sous chef and do the veggie prep...baby steps). Full disclosure...he only cooked dinner when it was his dishes day, since he knew someone would do that part if he did the cooking. Evil genius.

Nice

Reed has logged some time 'customizing' Tod's Waze navigation app. He changed the 'child reminder' to this. Such a nice big brother.