Captain's Log, Stardate: 07182008

This week has been one of many firsts in our house, which has been at turns interesting, exciting, guilt-inducing, and worrisome. We have also made some discoveries, lost a tooth, and are generally enjoying the ability to be taking it one day at a time.

• Monday, our local Elementary school - Rory, on her first day of Kindergarten has opted for the complete "real-school" experience and has chosen to go for the hot-lunch in the cafeteria. We peruse the menu at home and she decides she wants option A. Chicken Nuggets (other options were B. a Hamburger, or C. Yogurt with fruits and veggies and cheese.) Armed with this information, I drop her off and take the obligatory first-day-of-school pictures. (edit to answer a question: Yes, I cried seeing her off to her first day in K.) After school, in the car I ask how everything went on her first day, and she bursts into tears that she got on the wrong line at lunch and had to get the Hamburger instead. (She likes only cheeseburgers and as anyone who prefers a cheeseburger can attest, a burger sans cheese simply doesn't cut it.) She explains how it is set up so that you choose line A, B, or C, and she cannot read so she wasn't sure which line was for Chicken. Afraid to make a fuss and disrupt the mob of students, and being a real trooper, she went with it and "did my best to eat some of the hamburger, but I didn't like it." *sniff*

• Monday afternoon, my backyard - Rory, having completed her first day as an official Kindergartener announced that it was time for her to "give my training wheels to the needy." After three wrench changes and much elbow grease, she is riding free and fast, and impressing us all with her skills on a two-wheeler.
• Tuesday, at the fish tank - Having purchased a new package of dried shimp pellets for my bottom feeders, I cannot locate a scissors. I tear at the package with my teeth and am rewarded with a fabulous cloud of shrimp pellet dust in my face and mouth. As one with a shellfish allergy that causes anaphylactic shock, I promptly freak out. Racing through the house, I gargle with water and brush my teeth (three times) Gargle again with Listerine, and then take a shower. Ain't no shrimp essence on me!
  
• Tuesday, my living room - Liam Lord of the Dance, while watching Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, is seen to be standing on the couch, holding himself, legs crossed in the international sign for being moments from explosive release, and doing a jig. Mom, using her amazing intuitive abilities understands what this means and plucks him from said couch and places him, kicking and screaming (literally) on the potty where he, after much protest and wriggling, produces his first pee pee in the potty to much fanfare. Newly relieved and with an empty bladder, he made it clean and dry until bedtime, at which time he was performing an encore and we repeated the entire exercise. Satisfied with the attention and apparently desiring none in the future, he has lapsed back into wetting and soiling his clothing.
• Wednesday, two houses away - Rory, now a veteran at this whole elementary school gig decides that today is the day she will begin riding the bus to school with her big brother. "No, you don't have to walk me to the bus stop, but you can wave to me here from the porch." and "Can you please write the word "Macaroni and Cheese" on a postie note so I can use it at lunch time to find the right food line?" Success all around, her day is perfect.
  
• Wednesday, in my office - Corinne breaks into the world of Craig's List and agrees to give away three fish to the first of 15 people who reply to her post hoping to "rehome three fish who have outgrown our tank." Our sinister Leporinus trio, who are about a year old and about 5 inches long each and rather fat, are simply too much for the rest of the fish in our tank, who are disappearing one at a time and without a trace.
• Thursday, various locales - Relieved to have a place for them, I go to petsmart and beg an oversize fish-bag, since these fish are too large for any baggie I might have. However, somewhere during the process of capturing these fish, bagging them, and waiting to drive them to Denver for their adoption - Corinne managed to murder all three fish. I am completely guilty, guilt-ridden, but absolutely oblivious to the cause of their death. Perhaps it is cosmic fish-Karma paying them back for the lives they have extinguished in our tank, perhaps it is user error on my part, but whatever the cause, it is and shall remain a mystery.