{"id":432,"date":"2007-08-16T14:33:57","date_gmt":"2007-08-16T22:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.wordpress.com\/2007\/08\/16\/slightly-controlled\/"},"modified":"2007-08-16T14:33:57","modified_gmt":"2007-08-16T22:33:57","slug":"slightly-controlled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/?p=432","title":{"rendered":"Slightly Controlled"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We are one step above &#8220;barely controlled chaos&#8221; this week. Holding steady at &#8220;slightly controlled.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I know, I know! It has been a a week of photo-blogging, so in order to squelch the complaining, I am attempting to actually <em>write<\/em> a little something. You, people! I offer up pictures of adorable, little girls and yet you are never happy. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, let&#8217;s see. It is Thursday (Thursday! We made it to Thursday!), and thankfully we have had some great lunch\/playdates with old friends that we hadn&#8217;t seen in a long time. Both yesterday and today, and they more than made up for the not-so-fun things that happened this week. Like, say&#8230;locking ourselves out of the house and getting a speeding ticket.<\/p>\n<p>Other great stuff that has happened. J&#8217;s project is live! Yahoo!! You can go see it in all of it&#8217;s glory, it really does look great. It has made for one incredibly long week for J. since they are basically sitting around waiting for something to happen, so they can fix it.<\/p>\n<p>It also meant that he got to shave <a href=\"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.wordpress.com\/2007\/08\/13\/a-few-of-my-favorite-things-bsm\/\" target=\"_blank\">the beard<\/a> yesterday! Hallelujah! Although now, he looks kind of funny. (Not ha-ha funny, I guess we had just become accustomed to his manly facial hair.) So he&#8217;s thinking he needs to work on something in between &#8220;babyface&#8221; and &#8220;grizzly Adams.&#8221; I agree. I think he looked great <a href=\"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.wordpress.com\/2007\/07\/04\/happy-4th-of-july\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.  My m-i-l and I think he looked a little like Tim McGraw in that pic, sans the cowboy hat (and a little cuter, too!).<\/p>\n<p>So J. is still around, we are still waiting to get to spend more than a quick hour or two with him at a time, but at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. His hard work has paid off and we are very proud of him.<\/p>\n<p>Em&#8217;s last day of summer school is tomorrow. It is incredible to write that. It seems like we just dropped her off on her <a href=\"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.wordpress.com\/2007\/07\/06\/first-day-of-school\/\" target=\"_blank\">first day<\/a>. And it is also remarkable the change in her. Some good, some bad &#8211; mostly good, though.  The stuff that comes out of that girl&#8217;s mouth &#8211; it is so funny. A few conversations just from the past couple of weeks&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>(We are in Pei Wei, this Asian restaurant, one of our favorite places to eat. I am trying to herd the girls to the bathroom to go potty before we leave.)<\/p>\n<p>E: <em>Mama, you have to creep like this. <\/em>(And she is walking kind of on her tiptoes, like she is sneaking into a room.)<br \/>\nM: <em>Uh, ok. Why are we &#8220;creeping.&#8221;<\/em><br \/>\nE: <em>Because! We are secret Asians, Mama.<\/em><br \/>\nM: <em>Um,<\/em> (Gulp. Peek around to see how many &#8220;Asian&#8221; people are listening to this exchange? And a little cautiously ask&#8230;) <em>what is a &#8220;secret Asian,&#8221; Em?<\/em><br \/>\nE: <em>You know those kind of people, Mom? The kind that try to find things? We are secret Asians trying to find the bathroom!<\/em><br \/>\n(Ah, then it comes to me&#8230;)<br \/>\nM: <em>You mean secret <strong>agents<\/strong>?<\/em><br \/>\nE: <em>Yeah, Mom! Like the Backyardigans. Secret Asians!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Backyardigans are indeed very multicultural, who knew they were all Secret Asians, though?<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>(In the car, after the great &#8220;lock-out&#8221; of the week. We do have spare keys&#8230;long story. Anyhow they were not available when we needed them and I walked out the door, after having to go back in after BEAR, and my keys were left lying on the coffee table.)<\/p>\n<p>E: <em>Hey, Mom! Remember when you had to puuu-sh out the screen and then push me through the kitchen window, I had to jump off the counters and run around to unlock the door?<\/em><br \/>\nM: <em>Um, like 5 minutes ago, before we were late for school?<\/em><br \/>\nE: <em>Yeah. Ha. That was fun! If you ever leave your keys inside, I can do it again. It was fun!<br \/>\n<\/em>M: <em>Yes. Very. Fun.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>(Finally, after the cop pulled me over. Hard to believe, I know, but I was indeed speeding. Late to drop Em off for preschool. I did deserve a ticket and didn&#8217;t even try to talk my way out of this one. But it was only the second speeding ticket of my life, the last one was a good 10-11 years ago. I know, I said it was hard to believe and I also know that I am pretty lucky.)<\/p>\n<p>E: <em>Mom! That police officer is on a motorcycle!<br \/>\n<\/em>M: <em>Yes, he is.<br \/>\n<\/em>E: <em>Why did he turn his lights and his woo-woop sound on?<br \/>\n<\/em>M: <em>Because he wanted Mommy to pull over. I was speeding. Going too fast.<br \/>\n<\/em>E: <em>Why did he take your credit card?<br \/>\n<\/em>M: <em>It was my license, Em. He is going to give Mommy a ticket.<br \/>\n<\/em>E: <em>Hey! We have tickets! Remember when we went to see that&#8230;mmm&#8230;what was it called, Mama? The movie with the polar bear? <\/em><br \/>\nM: <em>Yes. It was Arctic Tale. We did have a ticket for that. But this is a different kind of ticket. This is a ticket where Mommy has to pay money (<\/em>probably a lot!<em>) because she wasn&#8217;t following the rules.<\/em><br \/>\nE: <em>Maybe he can just give you a timeout, Mommy.  Just tell him you are sorry and you won&#8217;t be speeding no more. It&#8217;ll be ok.<br \/>\nM: Yeah. Speeding tickets are kind of like timeouts for grown-ups, Em. It will be ok.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Such beautiful, sweet innocence. If only a timeout could work on all of our life problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are one step above &#8220;barely controlled chaos&#8221; this week. Holding steady at &#8220;slightly controlled.&#8221; I know, I know! It has been a a week of photo-blogging, so in order to squelch the complaining, I am attempting to actually write &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/?p=432\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,56,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emma","category-everyday-chaos","category-heard-around-the-house"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/psMOS-6Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}