cat calls

We were getting ready to leave the house to go to the Children's Museum (today's adventure) and I told Max he looked handsome. Then I let out a whistle. Joey looked at me and said," I can't whistle". He made a little "whoop-woo" with a high pitched voice. Then Max gave a real cat call whistle to match mine. Joey looked at my lips and said, "Put your air in me", and he opened his mouth and put it right over mine. I whistled, and then he used my air to try to whistle. Nice idea, even though it didn't work.

gelato is yummy 

unemployed, once again

Just a few brief notes about Summer Vacation - Day 2.

Today was my last day taking care of young Adam. The kids and I all went out for gelato and had a fun time, laughing and taking pictures of our last day together with our little adopted baby brother. Around 1:00 I handed him over to his lucky mom who gets to hear all his new words, watch his early steps and runs, and develop his personality as a wonderful stay-at-home mom. I wasn't as sad as I thought I'd be, because now Toni is free to hang out with me during the day! We have plans to go walk at Town Lake as much as we can next year, so I'll get to keep my eye on young Mr. D.

I thought that I'd be noticing lots of empty space in my cabinets and house after I packed up Adam's gear for Toni, but surprisingly my house is still as tiny and cramped as ever!

After Adam left, I appreciated the fact that my three kids are really pretty self-sufficient. They kept themselves busy while I did a major bathroom cleaning. It's one of those little freedoms in life that I'd taken for granted before having Adam. (Maybe because Joey was little then, I never had this freedom) It's the freedom to start a big, messy job with kids in your care. While Adam was here I never felt safe getting the Comet out, having toilet brush accessable, and making a big mess full of chokables in the bathroom. But today, I strapped on the iPod (love it!) and rocked out while I did a power scrub. I felt light, happy and productive.

Joey wandered in and eventually we were sitting on a stool, each of us with one earphone, listening to music. Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits came on. It's a song about two lovers, but some of the words made me tear up as Joey grinned and hammed his way through the music. We got to the line: "I love you like the stars above, I'll love you till I die", and I was just so happy to be there, singing with my kid.

"I can't do everything, but I'd do anything for you - can't do anything 'sept be in love with you"

"I'd do the stars with you, anytime"

"You and me babe, how 'bout it"

Being here has it's moments.

First Day of Summer

Today the kids and I:
Went to the mall, so Emma could take her report card to her new, favorite, overpriced girls' clothing store, Limited Too. With a report card of passing grades you get a five dollar discount on a $24 t-shirt. I am starting to get a glimpse of the difference of raising a daughter versus two boys who don't care what they wear.

After the Limited Too, we went to Picture People for our free sitting and portrait. I have used a coupon to get my one free 8x10 about 6 times now and I don't even think they try to sell me prints anymore. They check out my history on the computer and give me this glance like, "cheapo...." That's their problem, if they keep putting coupons out where I can get them. Anyway, I usually stick to the white background shot of the three kids. The Chipper Photographer always tries to talk me into colored backgrounds and props, but I know I'm not going to even consider buying them. Nor am I in the mood to buy shots of each child individually, but after explaining this to Chipper 18-year old Photographer for the sixth time, I decided she could knock herself out and shoot whatever the hell she wanted. Ultimately she got Joey to take his shirt off and put his sunglasses on top of his head and pose on a mini surf board. Whatever. Joey is such a ham, he jumped on the board and immediately struck a surfer dude pose. After that we went out into the mall to kill an hour and wait for the prints to be developed.

From there we visited Build-A-Bear, Pottery Barn Kids, a bookstore. Then, when it was time to check the pictures, and I'll be damned if the Joey on the surfboard wasn't the cutest thing I've ever seen. I ended up falling into the trap for two extra sheets of prints, so maybe Chipper-18 year old-Photographer knew what she was doing.

Then it was off to the Capitol for lunch at the Capitol Grill. That is my kids' favorite restaurant. It is a very utilitarian type of place. The food appears to be subsidized because you can get a whole club sandwich for about two bucks. And the decor is very corporate-looking. But this is where the movers and shakers make our laws. A lobbyist even came over to say hi to us. They have pizza, hot meals, sandwiches, salad bar, but best of all for the kids, a soft serve ice cream machine. The first time we went there it was a Friday afternoon, and they were cleaning out the machine and you could fill up a bowl with as much as you could possibly stuff in it, for about $2.00. I built a structurally sound confection about 8" tall. Since it wasn't Friday today, we just paid by the ounce, but the kids still dream.

Besides the ice cream, they love the building itself. Emma always fantisizes that we've moved into the Capitol and it is our house. Max loves to lean way too far over the railing in the upper rotunda making my legs feel weak. Joey likes the stairs. Then there's the best part of our visit, the vast expanse of thick lawn to run on. Undulating hills of green. I ought to just drive over every day and enjoy all that irrigation the citizens of our great state have paid for.

Our last stop was an art gallery. They loved it, but we were all getting tired, so we came home. The first day of summer celebrated. I dream that we can have an adventure a day this summer. But who knows, I get lazy, the kids get tired. But we'll see what we can do, stay tuned.

yippee! yikes!

It's the last day of school!

my book club

This morning I dropped the kids off at school. I saw my very funny friend, Robbin, and told her that this weekend we should meet for margaritas. (Since she missed the big birthday bash she's owed me a bit of her time for about two weeks.) She countered with, "Group of moms, Santa Ritas, tonight for margaritas, it's a power meeting from 8 to 9". Later I got her email,

Ladies-lets fortify ourselves with a quick rita tonight at Santa Ritas @ 26 doors. Not a late night but a deep breath ! hope to see you there ! robbin

I invited two extra friends to join us. One was a parent whose child Max has become good friends with this year, and one was a mom who I know from the preschool.

When we got there, my two guest mommies met the crowd of regulars, and we immersed ourselves with 'ritas and conversation. And while I listened and chipped in on the various conversations, I realized that women in any group find a common ground to talk about. We represented the spectrum from struggling to financially comfortable, from ultra liberal to ultra conservative politically, but what we had in common to talk about was mothers and friends with breast cancer, our kids during the summer, hunky guys on Desperate Housewives, our libidos, our Mommy Altzheimers--dubbed "Half Heimers" by one mom.

I've gotten togther with several different groups of ladies this year for celebratory margaritas. Always different groups, different reasons. They included once, after finishing the big fund raiser at the preschool, once for my birthday, once with my Par-tay trip girls, and now, for celebrating the end of a school year and beginning of summer with the kids. In each case, the women appreciated a chance to knit a web of support a little tighter.

I worry about husbands that don't make a safety net. Maybe it's just that men don't need it, or ignore the need, but it's as if Moms feel and appreciate having heard and told the stories they all share. That sounds corney, but I can't describe it any better than that.

Anyway, we decided tonight that we needed regular meetings-- especially this summer-- weekly!

Perhaps a we'll have a field trip thrown in for good measure, like tubing -- without kids -- on the Guadalupe, swimming -- without kids -- at Hamilton's Pool. We laughed that we could call the weekly meetings for margaritas our Book Club. (But since David reads this weblog from time to time, that won't really work for me..) But I'll call it the Book Club anyway. Because even if it's a ruse for drinking margaritas, a real Book Club, a Bunco night, or whatever, we all need it. All us Mommies need to get out and visit and cuss and relax. Like we learned in High School with our girlfriends, like we will be continuing as we get older and older, needing the women in our lives to tell stories to and find out that we're all going through the same stuff.

This is for the friend who couldn't see this picture when I emailed it to her. 

Poor Bree, poor Rex. 

pretty pretty try-its... 

Joey and his wonderful preschool teacher on the last day of school. 

David is horning in on the show. Emma after her triumphant dance recital. 

Merry Christmas

I ran into a mom who I hadn't seen in a while. We were comparing how overwhelmingly busy our schedules are this week..... baseball trophy parties, Brownie Awards, Splash Day, Field Day, Pizza Party for Max, Picnics...... aargh. Then Connie pointed out what another mom told her. The end of the school year feels as stressful as the holidays, without the big joyous payoff OF a holiday. Amen, sister.

too much junk

OK, Elisa was reading my mind when she posted her idea about de-cluttering her house. I'm on a tear right now. I am currently eyeballing the toybox in the TV room. I had to dig to the bottom yesterday looking for a hackey sack we used to own. En route I found that all those toys are just stored there, never played with, and really not that great. Of course, the hacky sack, was not present.

My kids have always been more interested in drawing, making tents and teepees, outside toys and now, video games, than playing with any specific toys and I couldn't be happier about that. I especially noticed it after Max's birthday. People asked, what does he like? And I really couldn't name anything. Sure enough, after the party, we had a stack of gifts, and he was sort of indifferent about opening and starting to play.I quietly put the unopened items up in my closet, thinking I'll pull them out over the course of the summer, but now I wonder...

One day I took a box of little knicknacks out of Max's closet, and went through the box with him, asking if there was some stuff we could pass along to other kids. He very easily picked out about 50% and never looked back. David was worried that Max was saying yes, to my repeated "can we get rid of this?" just to make me happy. So David would follow up with Max, "are you SURE you don't want this ....". Max was always sure.

I remember seeing a talk show (like Oprah) or something a long time ago. It had a man who was a dumpster diver. He might have been homeless as well. The interviewer asked him, how can you live without having any stuff? And this guy said, I'm like everyone else. I have sentiments, but I can have the feelings without having the object.

I notice clothes in my closet that I will never wear again,. that I save because I can remember wearing them to a party, or to an old job, or when one of my kids was little. I have a lot of kid stuff that falls into that category. But I've got the kids! And in my life right now, I spend a lot of time with all the objects in this house, cramming them into every available nook and cranny I can find, buying bins, and boxes to sort and organize and stack. When right there, waiting for me, are my three kids. They've proven they don't care about that junk, they'd just rather be building a fort -- with me! -- instead of watching me clean the room.

It's all going away.

Brownie Sundaes

Our last Brownie meeting is coming up on Thursday. So I spent the afternoon yesterday getting all my girls' badges ready for the "Court of Awards". I am unexperienced with Cub and Boy Scouts (that's about to change) but as for Girl Scouts, the trinkets, and badges and prizes are a big part of the program. I don't know if my kids (especially my daughter) care about getting the badges, but I've been very motivated to fill up their little vests this year. Did I mention that I was a competative little badge junkie as a child? So last night, I took ribbons and stapled all the girls' badges down them, affixed the one year star pins, then their cookie patches and camp patches. Fourteen ribbons full of loot looked so pretty all spread out on my living room floor.

We will be having an ice cream social for the final meeting, and brownies to eat.

It's really wierd, Emma is starting to do things that I can remember doing as a kid. Brownies, hand clapping games, knock knock jokes, lip gloss, having matching shirts and shorts with a best friend. Sometimes I worry about what's coming, the big hurt of losing a best friend and feeling adrift, and later, losing a boyfriend. Ouch. But right now it's just the cute, easy girl stuff, and brownie sundaes.

waddya want honey?

Here is a really cool website that will tell you what kind of English you speak.

I clocked in with 65% General American English, 30% Dixie and 5% Upper Midwestern. How did I get any Upper Midwestern? Must have been the Minnesota people who worked in our Seattle office. Polluting my speech patterns!

Anyway, just recently I was having a conversation with a friend. They had a potluck volunteer appreciation meal at the kids' school on Friday. I am a potluck junkie. I love them, and I was telling this to my table mate. We also talked about how cafeterias (Luby's, and Furr's) are like potlucks, with the salad lady saying "waddya want honey?' over and over. Then I told everyone that I made a big discovery during my decade in Seattle. They don't have cafeterias up there! In fact, when I asked about where to locate one, my friends looked at me like I was crazy. Someone said that I could go to the hospital, that they had a cafeteria there.

No, no, no. I explained what I meant, Luby's or Furr's, the lady with the hairnet and "waddya want honey" and my coworkers still looked at me like I was crazy and making a story up about cafeterias. I must have just remembered this after taking the English quiz, because they also said "soda" instead of "coke" when referring to a 7-up or Dr.Pepper. They had weird pronunciations of common words, a-DULT instead of how I say AD-ult. I started off saying re-con-ize and ended up leaving Seattle saying re-cog-nize. David thinks the "adult" and "recognize" were always mispronunciations on my part, but he grew up in Austin, and they don't even drawl much down here. Of course, "ya'll", "fixin' to" and saying "hey" for "hi" made my Seattle friends comment as well.

My friend at Friday's potluck grew up in New York. She said there aren't any cafeterias up there either.

Beyond the time I've spent thinking about cafeterias, it was a pretty busy weekend. Baseball game for Max, dance recital for Emma. This week will be insane, lots of end of the year activities crammed in the last full week of the school year. I'm counting down the days......

somewhere south of Temple, I think 

there! 

almost..... 

my sweet ride

First off, once I start reading people's blogs, I want some fresh news DAILY. (are you listening, sisters?) Anyway, so now I sort of feel a nagging sensation to write some bit of junk each day to keep my legions of fans happy.

A few weeks ago I made reference to my red Subaru wagon, and I intended to post a photo of it (with my political stickers on back) right away. I've almost feel like I've been neglecting my car by not making good on that promise (am I weird, or what?) and I still can't post a photo today. The only time I remember to take a picture is when I'm typing late at night, and you know, it's dark out there.

But I do have a significant photo of the interior of my car. It was the instant she rolled 100,000 miles. I was driving the kids up to Mom and Dad's and we were on I35 North. I decided that the moment the odometer rolled over I'd do something significant, like take a photo and name the car. So, behold the photo, and know that my car is named Ruby. The kids were very underwhelmed as we had the naming ceremony, and I think Julie's term for me when I got to the Metroplex was "dork" or something like that. Mom and Dad just pointed out how dangerous it is to take a photo while driving the car.

Lame on iPod

OK, so I've had my iPod mini for a week as of today. And between the two computers in the house, one is not hooked up to the internet and has a skipping CD player, the other hooked to www but with an old operating system that I can't load iTunes into, I'm stuck. So I'm waiting for Amazon to send Windows XP, and loading up some of our CD's through David's skippy CD. Anyway, last night I went looking around Yahoo Music for songs to download when I (ever) get my computer running.

I surfed around old songs that I remembered from growing up: ELO (Telephone Line), Kansas and Styx Greatest Hits Albums. Then I delve a little further back, looking for music that used to play in my Dad's Pharmacy in the late 60's early 70's. I was specifically thinking of "Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon". I found that, then found an album called "25 All Time Bubblegum Hits" or something like that. BINGO! It has songs like Sugar, Sugar by the Archies, and "artists" like The Partridge Family and The Monkees. I know Sugar, Sugar was my all time favorite song when I was around Max's age. Bubblegum Hits led me to the group, The Strawberry Alarm Clock and their hit "Goodmorning Starshine". My mind was reeling as I jumped to "Pettycoat Junction Theme Song" (All Time TV Favorite Hit Theme Songs) and the K-Tel and Ronco catalogs.

I filled up two sides of a piece of paper with scribbled names, arrows, titles, albums, artists. I even had "Halloween Sound Effects" on the list. And then it hit me. I can go backwards to a wealth of personal music heritage, but since having kids, I can't think of more than six artists that I have "discovered" to listen to. I'm being generous with myself about there being six! I think whatever I've bought new, has been a later (lame) album of someone I knew and discovered in college.

David listens to a Seattle Public Radio station through his work computer. I listen to KUT (where eclectic means Ethyl Merman mixed with Gregorian Chants) or KGSR which seems to be stuck with me in the Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson zone. I used to be so cutting edge and now I'm writing emails to mom to borrow her music!!!! And sadly, when I discover someone I like (ever heard of Beck?) I'm picking up albums of groups that have already disbanded, or put out their breakthrough albums 5 years ago.

lame, lame, lame.