Seven

We suspected he'd be smart, we knew he'd be silly, but we really never considered that someday (today!) Ben would be seven.
 

But he woke up this morning and asked, "Do I look seven?"

Clearly I'm the wrong one to ask, for two reasons. First, Ben will always look like a baby to me. But also, I remember seven. I was naughty. I gossiped. I had crushes on the boys. (Hello, Jeff Knepp and Michael Jimenez. Damn, you were cute.)

But perhaps not all sevens look alike. At least, I'm hopeful. Case in point:

Yesterday, Ben was doing some sort of strut (a separate issue) to my car after school. As he runway-walked, his classmate Eugenie shouted, "Ben, you're sexy!"

He stopped cold. I gasped.

She said it again: "Ben, you're SEXY!" 

Then he said: "No Eugenie, I'm seven!"

Phew. I have more time.

Eat, Play, Run

It's St. Patrick's Day, so we're eating our greens...kind of.

By coincidence, our green celebration started a week ago when Roman's pre-school class marked Dr. Seuss' birthday by making (brace yourself, vegan friends/family) green eggs. (Although no ham, since it was a Friday during Lent.)  He came home with the recipe - eggs, a few drops of blue and a few drops of green - and whipped up a green breakfast for lunch. 

 

Today we attempted green waffles, but the results were, incredibly, even less appealing:

And while we're on the topic of green food, behold this recent selection at lunch lady duty:

 

On the menu, this was called "seasoned green beans." See that seasoning? It's ham. HAM. Yep, here in Wichita, pork is a seasoning. (Although presumably not on Lenten Fridays.)
 
But back to St. Patrick's day, where we're also playing with our greens. As in money. Ben smoked us in Monopoly last night, finishing a financial and real estate whiz. Pretty incredible, considering that this is how he and Roman play:

 

And, finally, we're running the green...er, Anthony is, anyway.

 

He raced this freezing morning and placed 6th overall with a 24:42 4-mile time. Pretty impressive from our spot at the festive finish line.

Crackers

"I spy with my little eye," Roman said at dinner, "something that starts with the letter M. And it's white."

Ben, without hesitation: "Is it MOM?"

Wow. Time to get some sunshine? Or change make-up shades?

Thankfully, today we accomplished #1. All the other white stuff has melted, and in the course of a week, we went from this:

...to this:

The melt did mean saying farewell to Crackers, the boys' first snowman (with an unintentionally cheeky name). I can't help but show him off one more time.

And, for those of you playing, the answer to Roman's "I Spy" was milk. Not pasty pale Mom, although that was a pretty inspired guess.