She's Got the Whole World In Her Hands

Actually, the whole universe.

Today I'm choosing to do a school project with my kid, stick my head in the sand, and PRETEND that LNT is not liquidating. What? Going out of business sale? La, la, la (fingers in ears)...I can't hear you! I can't hear you!

So today Eleven and I worked on his latest science project for school--a to scale model of the solar system. Because I am just that good at math that I can figure out the distance between planets and convert it to half inches. Oh yes. I am.

We took a little road trip down to Michael's craft store to buy a solar system kit. I managed to corral my children into the kids' crafts section and left with ONLY the kit I went to get--a minor miracle in itself. Seven, my crafty little fellow, wanted every craft item known to, well, the universe we were about to create. I threatened them with starvation if they asked me for one more thing because Daddy's about to lose his job and I won't be able to keep feeding you if I spend $3.99 for a plastic squid and I don't care if you want to show your teacher how smart you are by building a saltwater ecosystem!!!

Ahem. Inserting head firmly back in sand now.

Ah, that's better.

We ran into Marian and her family at the store and she gave me a great, big, sympathetic hug. I can't imagine why. No bad news here, right? Right?

Anyway, we spent the afternoon painting planets because, naturally, we couldn't buy the already painted planet kit. That wouldn't be any fun at all. Besides, Pluto was pink, which Eleven declared "just wrong on so many levels." Is he my kid or what? He also said that it's not an actual planet, but a dwarf planet, which made me feel really old. Do you guys remember when we were in school and there were nine planets, no dwarf planets, and nobody had ever heard of Ceres and Eris? Which are, by the way, NOT included in the kit. Just so you know.

Eleven had verrry specific ideas about the stripes, swirls, and splotches he wanted to paint on his planets. Thank goodness we have the workshop so I can spread them out to dry without the dog eating them.

I drove my children crazy by singing the above song every single time I picked up a Styrofoam ball to poke it through a toothpick to dry. Hey, I've gotta take my fun where I can find it. It's my prerogative as a mother to make every attempt to annoy them a fraction of the amount that they annoy me.

Now I'm going to annoy them by cooking vegetables for their dinner. Heh, heh, heh. I'm pure evil. Maybe I'll sing that song again...