How can you NOT love this kid?

Destination 2025

Last year, Anna's third grade class created a book called 'Destination 2025' documenting what they thought life would be like in 20 years. They wrote about their families, their jobs, their goals, and predictions of the future. The book was published by a company called 'Nationwide Learning' and they did a great job. We received the book this week and some of the kids' answers made me smile! Here are a few examples:

ON THEIR FAMILIES:


'I want a husband who will wait on me 'hand and foot!' He will do what I want, and when I want it done'. (You go, girl! Just make sure you don't relay that quote to him before you have that ring on your finger.)

'I will not be living with a family because I will not get married. I might have a dog'. (I can just hear all the men out there saying that this kid is making a wise move.)

'My mother will be 54 and my father will be 56. My sister will be 34 and my brother will be 37. My dog will be dead.' (He's in touch with reality!)

ON THEIR JOBS:

'I want to be a dentist because I like to look in people's mouths.' (Exactly why I didn't want to be a dentist! I must have seen way worse looking mouths than she has).

PREDICTING THE FUTURE:

'The cars will be different. They will run on chocolate!' (I would love that. I'd get me a big, long straw and have it made on long car trips with no food establishments in site!)

'Flowers will be able to talk and sing at nightime.' (Okay, that just freaks me out a little).

'I think we will have a new state, and it will be named 'Jesus'. You get there by rollercoaster. We go there for vacations'. (This was my very favorite from the whole book. Elton John should write a song about it.)

'The president will be truthful' (Hmm . . there's probably a better chance that I'll be living in East Jesus sucking chocolate gas out of my car to the tunes of a singing dandelion.)

I absolutely loved this book. Creativity thrives in the mind of the young!

Quiz Wiz

Anna, Emma, and I were playing Bop-It (do y'all know this toy . . bop it, pull it, twist it ..?) last night right before bed time. Actually, it was about 30 minutes after bed time, but I was trying to make up for some 'Anna and Emma play time' missed often this week. So, we're playing Bop-It, and then Emma breaks out this Quiz Wiz that Anna bought at St. Vincent De Paul's for a dollar. It's pretty much the same Quiz Wiz I had as a kid, but just a more current version. If I would have kept my Quiz Wiz, it would be an antique and I could maybe sell it for thousands of dollars. Anyway, she takes out the Quiz Wiz, which is old enough in its own right, and has questions about the late 80s and early 90s. So, I tell Emma that it's really time for bed and she can only ask me one question. She picks 'sports'. That's my forte'. NOT. And this is what she reads:
"Which team lost the 7th game of the World Series in 1991?"
a.) Oklahoma Ass
b.) Chingo Clubs
c.) Alamo Beavers
d.) Minnesota Twins (don't ask me how in the hell she pronounced all of this correctly!)
I made her repeat the choices two times, just so I could giggle and remember them to tell y'all in my blog. I chose the 'Chingo Clubs' just because I wanted to say the word 'Chingo' out loud. That was wrong. I don't know what the answer was because I was still trying to figure out the 'Ass' mascot but then I got it. I could eat Emma up, by the way. She's my girl.

(My boy turned 11 months old today!)

Boo!

Scenes from the Weekend

The two look-alikes were swingers.
Emma is contemplating the complexities of life and John is planning when to take his next poop or the many ways he can destroy the house in seconds flat.

John M's getting geared up for Tiger Football Season in 2 weeks! ------->

Learned to never let John M. near the toilet paper.




Anna learned how to mow the grass! She got the hang of it in about 5 minutes. I, on the other hand, have tried for hours and still can't go straight. I'm glad she inherited Mark's ability to mow. But then, she inherited Mark's everything!

The Gap

I brought the kids to the zoo today for a birthday party. It poured down rain the entire time, but we still managed to have a good time. The trip to the zoo got me thinking about The Gap. Not the one in the mall, but the one in my family. Between my 9 and 7 yr olds and the baby. You see, I have two built-in babysitters. See them here -->
Many people told me when I was pregnant with little John 'oh, you already have 2 babysitters living with you'. I'd smile and agree, but I'd still wonder. Would the newness of the baby wear off quickly and my babysitters would run for cover? Were they too young to really help? The answer to both of these is definitely not. They help me in a countless number of ways every single day. I remember the days when Anna had just turned two and Emma was born. With Mark working a lot and out of town often, I was on my own. I'd pick them up from the babysitter and listen to them both scream. I'd turn my radio up in the car so I didn't have to hear them. I'd try to rock Emma to sleep and Anna would run in, looking for attention and hit Emma on the head and grin from ear to ear. Little sucker. The car was always hell; I couldn't get to them; they'd cry and I couldn't help. And we have lots of time in the car.
It's all different now. My 2 little SuperNannys have changed the whole experience of having a baby. In the car, they give him his bottle, retrieve lost 'noopies', tickle him for entertainment, feed him Cheerios, anything I need. He rarely cries on trips because he has his two favorite people right beside him giving him constant love and attention.
Even at home, I have help changing John, feeding him, watching him while I do housework, and just generally having a good time with him. I SERIOUSLY don't think I could have made it this far without them. They will be so prepared when they have babies of their own.
If you're reading this and have 2 older children and wondering if you want to start over with another, my advice to you would be 'do it'! It'll be different this time around. And when you see the three of them playing together and all of them giggling so hard they can't stop, your eyes will tear up and you'll wonder how you got to be so lucky. And how life is wonderful. And you'll be happy you have that one extra to fill The Gap.
(but also smart enough to stop right there) :^) Three is a perfect number for us.

John looks afraid

I think he's afraid of my hair in this picture <--. I know I am. So, it's almost midnight and I can't go to sleep. I was a housework fool today. I even ironed until 10:30 pm tonight. WOW! Then, I searched Anna's computer for pictures of the little blue-jean jackets I talked about here. No luck. Where'd those pictures go? No clue. So, now here I sit checking my email on a weekend, which I never do. Thanks, Cindy, Tara, Tiffany, Alison, and Cherie for the compliments on my blog. I'm glad I finally got brave enough to send it to y'all. I figure it's a way to keep in touch with y'all that I don't get to see often (Tara and Tiff). I hope I can keep it up. But I get lazy. What else? I'm trying to redo a flower bed (aka weedbed) on one side of our house. It's not fun; lots of ants and thorny weeds. If anyone would like to come by and do it for me, I'll be grateful. I'll even take you out to eat at Big Boy's! Any takers? What do you mean 'no'?
Well, I guess I'll sign off now and go see if I can catch a rerun of Survivor. It's the Outback season with Colby! OMG, How cute is Colby?! We're off to the zoo tomorrow. Hope it's not 102 degrees.

Sore sboob

I didn't know what to blog about today, so I figured I'd pick a photo that I had on my PC and write about it. This is my baby John, when he was I'm not sure how old . . maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a few days. I can't tell, but I CAN tell you this. When this picture was taken, my boobs hurt. That I know for sure. This was taken during the early nursing days when every other day, I would think about giving up. See, I didn't nurse my first two kids; it never even crossed my mind. I never thought I'd enjoy the experience; I guess the whole idea of it just didn't appeal to me.
I had friends and a sister who'd nursed and told me how great it was, but they did tell me it took a lot of getting used to and that it would be troublesome at first.
How right they turned out to be. Not just a little troublesome either. It was something I struggled with every day, well, every hour actually. I usually felt like I was doing it wrong, that he wasn't getting enough to be satisfied, that my milk probably tasted like french fries or something that day-old babies shouldn't taste. Then, after about 2 weeks, I decided to give up. Not all together, but simply pump and bottle-feed. Well, after about a 1/2 a day of that, I had a revelation. I missed nursing! How could that be, when while I was doing it, all I wanted was to NOT be doing it?! But I missed the closeness, the special feeling it gave me that I had never felt before.
So I started up again, and sure enough, a couple weeks later, it was actually enjoyable MOST of the time. I actually kept it up for 7 months, but by then, I had been back at work for a while and my supply had gone way down and I had to quit. The having to stop depressed me. I knew it was something that I'd miss tremendously and something that I'd never have the chance to do again.
But John M. was ready to move on. He, by this time, preferred the bottle and was happy to exclusively be fed that way. That little booger wasn't mourning it like me. Now, 3 months later, he's happy to have actual french fries, and mac and cheese, and his favorite oatmeal cereal with fruit.
But pictures like this one will always take me back to a time, in the Fall of 2004, when I could snuggle up with my sweet John in bed for hours at a time and the world seemed to stand still.

The Wrath of John

Sprinkler John . .
Gorilla John in the mud . .
John in the trash.....

Muddy John ...
John in the cereal...


You may THINK you can escape the wrath of Hurricane John but you really can't. Don't even bother.

A busy day for colons!

I went with my mom today to have a colonoscopy. Her nurse actually made the statement, 'Today is a busy day for colons!' while trying to explain while we were having to wait so long.
She didn't crack a smile. I laughed out loud. She looked at me, as if to say, 'What's so funny?'.
My mom didn't enjoy the viewing of her colon. What she hated the most was the drink that she
had to drink beforehand to cleanse her colon. It's called 'Go Lightly'. According to her, it should
be 'Go Heavily' or 'Go All Day' or 'Go 'Til You Can't Go No Mo'. But she did lose 4 lbs in 1 day.
I'm kind of wanting some 'Go Lightly' as a dietary plan.
Anyway, mark it down. August 17th, 2005 was 'A busy day for colons'. Who woulda thunk it?

Sleepover!

I let the girls have a sleepover Saturday night before they had to go back to school. We had it at our camp on False River (which is actually a lake). Thought I'd post a pic. Here's the gang.
These 8 girls survived the following river adventures:
Swimming a few feet from a snake in False River
Much screaming from the snake encounter
Seeing a small duck sucked down into the False River water by a mysterious creature
What Emma describes as a purple striped fish with curly Q hair in the river (we still haven't
figured that one out).
Anyway, they passed a good time. I won't be doing that again for a while though . . . not enough sleep.

2nd and 4th

(Sorry about the blurry pic, but EVERY single one I took was blurry. I'm impaired when it comes to using the digital camera.)
Emma and Anna started school today, 2nd grade and 4th grade, respectively. How old am I? Very. I remember thinking back when they were younger that by the time, they got to be in the upper elementary grades (4th, 5th, 6th) that I wouldn't worry as much and surely, I wouldn't have to walk in with them the first day. Wrong again. I worry every year. I'm not sure exactly what it is that I'm worrying about, but there's still lots of worrying. I guess I just want their first day of each new grade to be a good one. I want them to hit it off with their teachers and have a good time with their friends. I want them to be comfortable right off the bat, which is impossible, I know, but still. They were okay this morning. Anna was nervous, but that's par for the course for her. She seemed better once she talked to her teacher and her friends.
Emma was Emma. She couldn't have cared less if the ground opened up and swallowed me whole right there in front of her. She'd just be like 'oh, too bad' and walk right into her class with her teacher.
But, they made it through the day. I'll try to report on any info I can pull out of them about school. It's like pulling teeth to get them to tell me anything lately.

My brain is doing the backstroke!

My mind is swimming. It swims a lot lately, but today is worse than usual. My normal weekdays consist of mostly work and my normal weekends, mostly kids. But today, I had the morning off of work to go to Anna and Emma's orientations for school. I met with teachers, chatted with friends, chatted with other mothers, unpacked school supplies, labeled a variety of shit, stopped at the sitters' to let my kids know who their teachers were, and then came to work. By the time I got here, I had a million thoughts in my head. I can't stop these thoughts from floating around, so I can't concentrate. Here's a little peek into my head:

"Today is my mom and dad's wedding anniversary, I need to call my mom.

How long have they been married . . I should know that? Let's see I'm almost 36, Kelli's 37, so
they've been married 38 years. Wow, that's a long time.

Let me grab my phone and call her. Oh, I need to ask her about keeping the baby Tuesday b/c
Mrs. Sam is taking the day off. But I have that gift for my mom so I'll just ask her then. Okay.

Tuesday . . my mom will keep the baby. What about Anna and Em? Oh, they'll be in school.
Did I get all the forms from their school? How will I get it back? Their folders. Oh, I left Anna's folder.
Oh well, she'll put it in her booksack.

They'll have to take the bus to school this year. I hope they don't have a long bus ride. I'll have to change
my work hours to work around that. And I need to take leave Monday for the first day of school. But I've been taking so much leave, how to rig that.

The sleepover this weekend. . I need stuff for that. But I'd rather shoot myself in the right nostril then go to Wal-Mart again. Maybe Dollar Tree. On break? that'll be a long break, but maybe Krystal will join me. It'll be fun. How much stuff do I need? I can't spend much money b/c I'm broke.

etc, etc"

That's pretty much my brain all day today. Only with about 2000 other things mixed in. Does anyone know what I mean? Okay, too many things to think about. Gotta go. Peace out.

They call me Yuck-Mouth

These are what my teeth aspire to be.
Unfortunately, these are my actual teeth.

Too bad I can't Photoshop my actual teeth. I went to the dentist today. I hate the dentist. Really. No kidding.
I hadn't been in a year and a half prior to this. I blame it on being pregnant last year and having enough misery to endure with that. So I made an appointment for last January and then cancelled it. Then made one for March and cancelled. Then July. Cancelled. So, I bit the bullet and went yesterday. I whined most of the time to the cute, little friendly hygienist. Poor girl. She told me I was probably worrying the little girl in the next room who was getting sealants put on. That little girl probably thought they were pulling all my teeth one by one. But really, I just had X-rays and a cleaning. I know, I'm a wimp.
The thing is genetically, I have good teeth. I've never had a cavity, so I've never had to get a filling and go through real pain. But I'm not an avid flosser. Or sometimes not a flosser at all. So, I get gingivitis. This is probably way TMI, but oh well. So, my visit today involved a lot of scraping with that little instrument from hell. What is that thing called anyway? There was close to an hour of the scraping, broken up by my whining.
Then came the polishing. I was hoping this would make my teeth look a little whiter because as you can see from the photo above, I need whitening! I don't smoke or drink coffee; I just have urine-colored teeth. What a blessing. The hygienist said 'no', the polishing won't make my teeth any whiter. But I could have them bleached.
WOW! I'll take one order of bleach, then. She said '$350 and insurance doesn't cover any of it.'
I take back my 'WOW!' and here I sit with beige teeth. http://www.sk2.aitai.ne.jp/~happy/YNcc812.html
Or maybe 'papaya whip' or 'navajo white'.

Innocence

I've been thinking about a trip we took to California a little over 3 years ago. It was a trip I was going on for work and I decided to bring the whole family. I've been thinking about this particular trip the past couple of days because I'll probably be taking a similar one in the next couple of months. This vacation stands out in my mind for a few reasons. It was the first time the girls had flown, the first time Mark and I had gone anywhere far together, etc. Anna was 6 and Emma was 4. I had bought them these little matching denim 'Mary Kate and Ashley' jackets with fur collars, and they were so perfectly cute. I can remember watching them play at Yellowstone Nat'l Park in those matching jackets, thinking what great ages they were at and how I should I really soak in the moment. Before I knew it, they wouldn't want to own anything that matched what the other had and probably wouldn't want to play with each other. So much of the innocence would be lost. I thought this many times during the trip; how lucky we were to have this time together and also, how lucky I was to still be in the moment where they liked to go places with us. I imagined 3 or 4 years down the road when they would be 10 and 8 and how incredibly different it would likely be. It made me want to cry, knowing that my little girls wouldn't be so little anymore.
Well, 'then' is now. They're almost 10 and 8 now. Anna, my oldest, almost wears the same shoe size as me and is in the beginning stages of puberty. Emma is almost as tall as Anna and starting second grade next week. But, the surprising thing is how wrong I was about what I imagined 3 years ago. Sure, they've changed in many ways. They wouldn't be caught dead wearing matching outfits. They're more likely to play alone more often in their own rooms, instead of together. But they still are happy to hold my hand, and come and sit in my lap and hug me. They still want me to go places with them and hang out. I didn't see that one coming but it sure is a pleasant surprise. The great thing is I can have mature conversations with them now, where we talk about their friends, our family, the past, and the future. Our relationship is changing and we are becoming friends. It's growing in that direction a little more every year.
I know hard times are coming with the teenage years, and dating, and all that goes along with it. And no, I'm probably not prepared. Hopefully, it will all go along a little smoother than what I'm anticipating. For now though, I'll cherish THIS time in our lives. I'll try to appreciate the innocence a little longer. While it lasts.

My Girls

Didn't think I would post anything today, but I decided to dedicate this post to 'my girls' at work. This would include Beki, Krystal, Laurie, Erica and Tracy (Melissa is MIA for now after having TWINS!). All I can say is 'how could I make it through the day without y'all?' This is on my mind today because we've just been cutting up and being silly, which is how I like it 24/7. Just talking about kids, losing weight, avoiding work, poop, etc.
Eating the Krispy Kreme donuts when we know we really shouldn't. But, hey, if we ALL do it, it's not so bad, right?
Sometimes I don't give enough credit to how important these people really are to me. Y'all make my work day bearable and make me feel not so alone in my weirdness. And I mean that in a good way.
So, I'm saying it here. Thank you all for making me laugh every day, for being great friends, for talking to me about my problems, your problems, and anything else that delays doing our work a little more.
Peace out.

Beetle and Cig Butt Gumbo

How many disgusting things can my 10-month old insert into his little clean, pure mouth? I need to track it somewhere. While at Anna's softball team's pool party yesterday, he was not happy to be carried around the entire time. I put him down and watched him do his 'booty-in-the-air' gorilla crawl around the pool. I started talking for a few seconds (I swear, it was only a few) and looked down at him just in time to see him about to gobble up a dirty, mashed, cigarette butt. Aghhh! Shit! Get it out of your mouth, child! I grabbed it from it and he looked at me like I had just ruined his meal. Later, I found him digging dead beetles out of a hole and trying to eat them. The day before, he was gnawing on a muddy green pecan at my mom's house. I mean, I do feed him actual food. I promise.
Towards the end of the party, he grabbed a Ruffles potato chip off of the ground and started chewing on it. I didn't even flinch. I mean, that's FOOD right? Right. Bad mother, I know.
Maybe we'll start calling him 'Pumbaa'. Hakuna Matata.