Wow. I'm tired!

If I could get Hayes to sleep through the night, it might not be so bad! But in the last two days I've done two science projects with experiments and tri-fold poster displays, a Raingutter Rigata boat, and created a "Viper" costume; all in addition to the usual stuff. And I've realized a couple of things about myself...I'm very resourceful. Which is fortunate becaue the other thing is that I'm a terrible procrastinator!!! Here is a statement by Briggs that summed up this enlightenment after I made him a "Viper" costume at midnight the night before his school type-off (he was the VIPER TYPER and got 3rd place in his grade). Anywho, I had asked him what other kinds of costumes there were and he said, "One of the girls was the Tiger Typer and just had an orange shirt with drawn on whiskers and nose. Her mom probably waited until the last night too, but she wasn't as creative as you." Well...at least he liked what he ended up with!

I really tried to be on the ball though. Sophie and I tried to grow sugar crystals twice earlier in May and neither set worked out. So on Tuesday - two days before her project was due we were up late baking several loaves of bread with various amounts of yeast. I sent her to bed once it was raising, but had to stay up until almost 2:00 to finish it. This was the same night that I was trying to come up with a Viper costume. And did I mention that earlier in the evening I had painted and put together a boat for the Raingutter Regata that was to be held later that evening? No, I'm not one of those parents who does the pinewood derby cars FOR the cub scout, but Briggs was at soccer when my friend called and happened to mention that her son was sick and felt bad he had to miss it that evening...Oooops! We'd completely forgotten about it!

So on that note, I need to say a quick "thank you" to Krylon spray paint. Every mother should keep a stock of that and some double-stick tape tucked away! Just in case. I pulled out my black and gold spray paint and it took me 5 min. to paint the boat. I also painted the front of a visor for the costume so that it was solid black, and the name "Viper" in gold on a shirt, and since I never went and got a tri-fold board for Briggs and had to make one from an old box, I dressed it up with a little black paint too. So ha! All you mothers who were so on the ball and remembered to buy your tri-fold - your kids are going to have plain white and will wish they had a cool black one with their name graffiti painted on the back! Plus it's just fun to spray paint things. Especially gold! Even gold rocks are really cool! But back to my weariness....

So I had made it through Tuesday, but Wednesday we had to put all of the project data together and make it look cute. Plus, I was sad that we had to send most of the good bread we had baked to school with the display, so I decided to make some more. Maybe not a priority, but I couldn't help myself. Fresh baked bread was calling me!

We were once again up late, but we got it done and it was fun! We titled Sophie's bread project "House of the Rising Bun" (Tyler's contribution to the whole fiasco) and we actually downloaded an instrumental version of the song, House of the Rising Sun for her to play on her iDog. She didn't really see the humor, but we ensured her that the teachers would appreciate it and made her take it.

And when I say, "I did two projects" I have to clarify that I did have the kids do them. I just took care of details, made suggestions, provided materials, helped with design, layout, and some typing and acted as sort of an overseer. Which really makes it harder. It really is much easier to do it all yourself!

But they turned out really cute. We put a bit more time into Sophie's since it was optional for Briggs. And why did we even do one for Briggs if it was optional? Because I read Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. And if you've read it, you understand. (Great book! I was inspired to push and police those piano lessons again! However, I am decidedly NOT a 'tiger' mother...more of a chicken-without-a-head mother type I think.)

And yes, his hair is green. We spray painted it for the Viper thing the day before and he did his best NOT to wash it out when he showered.