Sui Generes

Being tired, overworked and generally out of touch with reality is NOT a good enough excuse for my missing this lady's birthday last weekend.

So, I humbly offer her this:

10 Reasons Sarah D Deserves a Fabulous 33rd Birthday:

1. She's been my friend for 19 years (that's more than 1/2 our lives)
2. She can do The Worm like no other. But she's selective about her performances.
3. She single handedly challenged the Catholic Church at age 12 and refused to be confirmed. Love that!
4. She married this cool dude. (also making a name for himself in the dance world.)

5. Back in 1988, I gave her a peach scented drawer sachet for Christmas. I'm sorry. There's so much lame about that present.
6. The first words I heard from her mouth were: "Silver and Gold!" (OK, so I wasn't actually in the Powers locker room when she sang it, but that won't stop me from reliving that moment.)
7. She's a hard workin' mama with a super cool kid.
8. She's the best damn ship photographer I've ever met.
9. She's all Laura Ashley on the outside, Punk Rock on the inside.
10. She so something er nuthin'...er suh!!!!! (the MOST in-joke you can get, but it's gotta be in the list.)

Happy Birthday, S.A.D.!!

Sweet Dreams

I just caught the tail-end of Daithí's bedtime story to Síofra via the baby monitor...

...and the beautiful fairy, Síofra, set off on her great adventure with her friend the Golden Eagle.





And the two of them soared through the air to the magical land of Atlantis...




...where they were welcomed by the mystical Queen Latifah.

Donegal, Mork and Mindy, Back to School

It's 7:04 a.m. and I've been up for a half hour already...and it's Saturday. Good lord.

It's been a very busy and exciting couple of weeks; my apologies to my fan base (um...that's you, Sarah D) for the lack of posts. Here's the short version:

1. Our week in Donegal was great. I'm always amazed at what a beautiful place it is. My Gaeilge course was useful and even fun. There was a nice group of us in the class and it was a laid back environment. Daithi was great with the kids all day; thankfully for them there is a public playground in Glencolmcille, so many an hour was spent there. Paddy's week was full of accidents, testimony to his growing independence and stereotypical boyish activities (I was never on the "nature" side of the nurture vs. nature argument, but since having a boy and a girl, I'm a bit converted). First, he and his stroller fell into a ditch while they were picking wild blackberries and he bruised his forehead; next he ran down the stony driveway and fell, scraping and bruising the head again; then he was hit by a little wave at the beach and fell in the water, soaking him and putting an end to our plans to eat in a restaurant that night; next, he and another boy had a scuffle in the park that resulted in then falling to the ground while Paddy's finger was in the other boy's teeth...and ripping the skin off the top of it. It was like a finger circumcision. Very gross, but Daithi handled calmly and cooly. Finally, he fell off the step at our friends' Micheal and Sinead's house and bruised that forehead AGAIN. Poor guy. He was a real city boy battling the elements of the countryside.
But the highlight of Donegal were the afternoons on the beach. One day, when we got to the bottom of the steps down to the beach Siofra screamed, "I LOVE THE BEACH" and then squealed. That made all the sand in the Paddy's diaper and in Siofra's socks worth it.
The owners of the house we rented had a beautiful dog, Shep, that the kids adored. Why is Siofra carrying a rolling pin? We're not sure, but I can assure you that she didn't beat Shep with it.

2. Then we had three great days with our friends Marcus and Mitzi...a.k.a. Mork and Mindy. It was great to see then again after 2 years!! Now they're in Italy enjoying the sun and pasta...lucky them!

3. And, sadly, my days as a SAHM finished on Thursday when I returned to work. It went well, apart from some unfortunate disorganization at the school that resulted in my classroom not being ready, so I'm sharing a room with another teacher and her class. This isn't that bad, but there are a lot of kids so it's a bit tricky to get them focused. Hopefully it'll be sorted by then end of September. And then 4 of us will have to move classrooms...uhgg.

Well, I'd better feed these kids. More later on how school is going...I do miss the kids but actually I'm so busy at school there's not much time to dwell on it. And I am able to pick them up at 3:30, so it's not that bad, really.

How many days until midterm break? 60.