GATES BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Oh James, I'm not sure what to record about your first play... You were absolutely adorable, and some of your friends did so well with their parts, but the rest of it... 

So many kids either didn't know their lines or got terrible stage fright, and it didn't help that there were 4 different kids who played Beauty and 4 different kids who played Papa and 3 different kids who played Beast and 2 different kids for each of the castle servants... It was just hard to follow and there were many interruptions. But you stole the show in our eyes!

We grabbed Cora out of class and got ready for the show to begin!

Henri the Painter and Marcel the Mime set the scenes

Papa #2 (our friend Lauren) in the woods with the wolves (our friend James M. was Fang, second wolf from the right)

Here's Lauren again with our friend Alex, who played Flash #1

Marcel gives Henri a rose

 Beauty #3 (our friend Alexis) with the wolves

The play ended with Henri the Painter closing the scene while all the kids paired up. James danced with our friend Kennedy (who was Millie the Milliner) and flashed us the cutest grin when he saw the camera aimed at them!

 The finale was supposed to have James walking to center stage solo, blowing a kiss to the audience, and bowing, but because the play was so flustered (as was the GATES teacher), the ending was skipped (despite poor James trying to get her attention and me even speaking up on his behalf). Luckily, James wasn't too upset (he told me when I rushed backstage looking for him that he just did his moves behind the curtain).

 The students (and their siblings) were rewarded with popsicles, so they were all pleased. Plus they got to leave school about an hour early.

 I vote that if they attempt a play again next year, they either practice more (and run through the whole thing in front of the other students before bringing the parents in) or choose something shorter and easier. Hopefully all the kids learned something and it was a good experience for them!

MIME PRACTICE

Tomorrow is Marcel the Mime's big day, so tonight we practiced his makeup and he showed us his finale:

4 WEEK CHICKS

Flight feathers are coming in nicely, and signs of roosters are absent, so we may have a whole flock of ladies on our hands...

 Barred Rock (all of these 7 chicks are definitely girls, since they were sexed at hatching)

 Mille Bantam and Russian Orloff (our Bantam roo was crowing this time last year, and neither of our Bantams are showing any of the male signs, so hopefully they'll both be females!)

HEALING

Surgical tape came off this morning!

The knee is a little swollen from starting PT and doing my PT homework (and still sore behind the knee where the calf and hamstring are so tight and shortened), but getting more flexible every day (it looks bigger than the right knee in this photo because I can't flex the quad as much on the left leg yet).

SUPER LOW

I started PT today, and just the act of going from home to school to office to lab to PT earned me more steps than I've had in a week...

 (I didn't even wear my VivoFit on Thursday, since I was in surgery in the morning and then asleep on the couch pretty much all afternoon and evening.)

Honestly, the past 2 months of this injury have been ridiculous as far as my activity levels. I've very rarely hit my step goal, which is set to the fluctuate setting anyway (and has been down near 7,000 for many weeks, versus the 10,000-13,000 steps that my goal is usually up at), due to zero running and a lot less walking than usual too (except for the weekends of camping and parades). December and January weren't much better with my hip "injury". I know this shouldn't matter and it's a minor thing to complain about in the grand scheme of life and all that could go wrong, but it still bothers me. I feel lazy and out of shape. I miss hiking and running and bootcamp and exercise in general, I miss hitting my goals and logging miles (normally I'd have about 300 by the end of March, but I'm sitting at a super sad 36 miles in 2017), and I just really hope that this surgery was the right decision for me and that I'll be back to my old self (or at least starting back in that direction) in 6 weeks...

QUIET TIME

The kids have been very good sports (and very good helpers) while I've been resting and healing. Lucky for them, they were invited to a play date this afternoon with the Hancocks, so they got out of the house for a few hours of trampoline bouncing and animal chasing and Lego building. They were actually a little tired when Jay brought them home, so they tucked in next to me with their books.

(Cora was reading The Fire Cat and James was reading an Upside Down Magic book.)

CINDERELLA BALLET

I sneaked out of the house for a few hours today to take the kids to the Cinderella ballet (don't worry, Jay drove and dropped us off right at the door - I did very little "walking" on my crutches) and then to eat a very early pizza dinner afterwards (it was nice to have my appetite back, and the nausea gone).

 Dressed up and looking cute

 We went to the ballet with the Kennedys, and while all the kids went outside to run around and eat cookies during the first intermission, the boys decided to read their books and keep me company during the second intermission.

PARTIAL MENISCECTOMY

Thursday morning I had a partial meniscectomy to "fix" a complex tear of the medial meniscus in my left knee (an injury that I sustained, most likely while running, about 6.5 weeks ago, which resulted in a lot of pain, a lot of swelling, and very little improvement during the 5 weeks it took me to suck it up and go in for an MRI). 48 hours later, during my first dressing change, it looks like this:

Not too bad. The surgery was outpatient and pretty simple (from what I was told). It went well and as expected, but I won't know any further details until I go back for my follow-up appointment in a couple weeks. I'm basically on bedrest for 72 hours, but plan to be off crutches shortly after I get moving again tomorrow. I start PT on Tuesday and will go 3 times per week for at least 4 weeks.

 No visible swelling, hooray!

SOUTHPARK SKATE NIGHT

Jay took the kids out to their school's Skate Night fundraiser this evening while I hung out with Lee (who brought gumbo!) and continued to rest as instructed (following my knee surgery yesterday morning).

Pictures (and glowsticks) courtesy of Cora's teacher:

Videos courtesy of Jay:

I was informed that Cora sang along (loudly) to most of the songs (I love that she's gliding now, by the way!) and that James' "skate dancing" was a big hit (with the teachers, and also his friend Lauren, whom he is skating with in his video).

CORA THE ACROBAT

Over the past few weeks Cora has mastered a few different skills in Acro. (Yes, she's wearing the same leotard in all of these, but they are filmed at 3 different classes - she just likes her black leotard best because all the teachers and "big girls" wear black)

.

She works really hard in Acro. 

She's very strong, and very determined, and we're very proud of her!

HAIRCUT BUDDY

My hairdresser is having surgery next week and will be out for a couple weeks, so I decided to sneak in this afternoon to cover my grays before my own surgery tomorrow (and before I fly out to California for a training class in about a week). James came along because he was finished with Pre-Ballet (and Cora stayed for Acro - Jay picked her up after class). I told James he could play his Kindle for 30 minutes as long as he read for 30 minutes first. He is always so chill when he accompanies me on these types of errands... Cora is usually running dancing in circles, chatting up my hairdresser, or reorganizing their display shelves (OCD baby).

 Such concentration ;-)

GUINEA EGGS (FOR REAL THIS TIME)

I found a pointy little brown egg in the coop yesterday afternoon...

Upon closer inspection (and after it dried off), I noticed it also had a strange texture:

 Since we've been getting about one egg per day from each of our 4 girls, I wasn't sure if this was another weird "fairy egg", perhaps from Lady (our Olive Egger), since there were eggs from Anna, Chickaletta, and Elsa in there as well. But then, of all the hens, Lady is the least consistent, so maybe it was a guinea egg?...

Jay collected another egg exactly like this one today, so we're going to assume they really are guinea eggs this time. Now to decide whether we eat them or try to incubate them...

2017 CHICKS

Our 2017 baby chicken adventure began with 11 Barred Rock chicks delivered via mail to the Jungs (you order them in batches of 10 and they send an extra because it's apparently common to lose one or two...) on March 2nd. They were all females (Barred Rocks are some of the few breeds that can be sexed upon hatching). And we did lose one overnight that first night, unexpectedly (since they all seemed fine when we went to bed). And it was so sad!

 They were tiny and adorable, and the kids had barely held them (because tiny babies need to be kept very warm and calm, so we don't handle them much for the first few days). The next day we picked up a couple of Bantam chicks (Mille Fleur, like Chester was) from our vet (who we got all our chicks from last year) because we LOVE our little Elsa and want to have a couple more little bitty friends for her. Hopefully at least one of these will be a female:

 Friday night was James' birthday party, and when we got home, we noticed a couple of the chicks looking weak. We started force-feeding them water, electrolytes, and sugar water with medicine droppers, and checked for "pasty butt" (which we had to clean repeatedly for one of the chicks over the next 12 hours). We lost another, then another and another. Cora bawled and we started worrying that we had a batch of sick chicks, which we'd now exposed our bantams to. Thankfully, the 7 remaining Rocks have continued to look strong and are growing quickly (they already have flight feathers growing in). Originally, we had planned to keep 4 of the Rocks and the other 6 would go to the Jungs (we're raising them all because they don't like raising babies), but with the loss of 4 of them, we decided to keep just 2 (so the Jungs could still get at least 5), plus our 2 bantams, and then add 4 "others". We contacted our vet again and decided that some of her Russian Orloffs would make a good addition to our flock, so she sent us this picture of her newly hatched cuties:

 They are friendly and curious, like the Bantams, so we're really excited! We brought 4 home in various hues. Cora likes the little blonde chick best, and a couple of them even have downy feathers on their legs and feet (likely just a phase, which they'll outgrow as they become "teens").

 So the flock of 13 looked like this:

 After a couple weeks, they started eating and pooping more, so it was time to start a weekly (and eventually biweekly or more) cleaning of their tub. This first cleaning was easy because Cora simply corralled them all into the baby pool while I took their tub outside for a cleaning. She ended up getting in with them though because the older and taller Rocks were jumping out...

 She has her favorite in her hands in the picture above left, and one of each kind in the picture above right (Barred Rock, Russian Orloff, and Mille Fleur).

 13 chicks in the pool... Everybody is starting to get their big bird feathers!

 The Rocks then learned to jump up onto their food and water containers, and then jump from there up onto the wood holding their heat lamp up, so we had to cover their tub. Before we know it they'll be big enough to move outside!