One Fine Day

I wrote the following post when I returned home from a visit to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Memphis this past summer. I can't remember why I didn't post it, but I found it sitting in my drafts folder and decided they needed their praises sung.

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You know that bag Michelle Pfeifer's character carries in the movie One Fine Day? You know the one where throughout the movie she seemingly has every item possibly needed for any and every occasion or emergency? Rip in her stockings, voila another pair are in the bag; son spills food all over her shirt just before an important meeting, voila another shirt; it starts raining just as she and her son are heading to walk home...no problem there's an umbrella for her and full head to toe rain gear for her son in that darn bag! So...my Mother and I decided that's exactly the perfect analogy for describing my Uncle Mike and Aunt Gail's home. They have everything a guest could ever need! Not just guests, anything THEY could ever need. I'm not kidding! I don't know why they would need to go to the store for easily the next solid year!

They have a closet stocked full of all the household maintenance items you may need: shelves of light bulbs, batteries, toilet paper, paper towels, etc. This same closet has a treasure chest chock full of the freebie toys that are given away with Kids' Meals at fast food establishments. Seriously it's enormous! Heck, **I** got excited looking at that treasure trove of goodies! I wanted to dive in!

Moving on from that well stocked closet of necessities to the pantry...oh...I'm gaining weight now just thinking about that pantry...every snack, goody, and food under the sun! Whatever your favorite is...it's there, no doubt! Oh and then there is the SECOND fridge outside in the garage that is full of sodas, popsicles, beer, and the like. Because, you know, the fridge in the kitchen was busting at the seams with all kinds of delectable things to eat and drink, so clearly all the other awesome stuff couldn't fit and they needed a whole second fridge. Just awesome!

Moving on to the rest of the house...we find every toy imaginable available for their grandkids; thereby making our trip incredible. I came with my toddler and infant in tow, so of course the guest bedroom has a crib for the baby and my Uncle brought up a rocking chair from downstairs for me to nurse the baby. Not that I would ever dream to request they rearrange their house just for me - they insisted! They are just that kind of people.

My toddler had a friggin blast sleeping in the fold out beanbag. Yeah, it's the coolest thing ever...the beanbag chair unzips and the stuffing is a queen sized mattress - this is soooo much better than an air mattress...I was jealous my son got to sleep on it. Don't think for an instant it's not comfortable, it's like sinking into a cloud! If you're curious they're here: http://www.cordaroys.com/. I've been looking for an excuse to buy one....thinking the kids' bedroom may need it! :)

Moving on...they have every single (I think) Dr. Seuss book ever printed - my son discovered a love for Dr. Seuss while we were there: Hop on Pop and A Fish out of Water had to be purchased when we got home from the trip.

Still...more...the guest bathroom is stocked with shampoos, soaps, extra toothbrushes, hair care products, hair driers, hot rollers...everything!

So yeah, my Uncle & Aunt Thornton's house is just like Michelle Pfeiffer's bag in One Fine Day. Everything you would ever need is right where you would expect to find it!

I don't have many visitors stay at our house all that often...but I will now strive to come as close as I can to my Aunt and Uncles' home whenever I do have guests over again. Perhaps One Fine Day, I'll achieve a Thornton-esque home! I Love you guys!

I dug around trying to find a recent photo of them and found none with them together, so here's a picture of my Aunt and Uncle at a cousin's wedding about 2 years ago I guess:

Breakfast with the Kushnir Boys

All these video posts, I'm sure, are quite boring to my non-family members... feel free to ignore them and move on. :) I've been drawing a bit lately and will likely start posting about my art work soon...I hope...maybe.... **GRIN**

To my family (and anyone who cares): Here are couple of videos from breakfast this morning with Paul and Peter. Paul, by the way, has been eating like a trooper! He's had carrots, sweet potatoes (of course he's had rice cereal and oatmeal already), Pears, mashed bananas, mashed potatoes and this morning he had a blend of blueberries and applesauce for breakfast (the first time with berries) he seemed to like it.

The second video is Peter having breakfast and being a two year old! :|

Paul, Oh so Close to Crawling!

I know I just posted a video of Paul scooting/crawling yesterday but the kid figured out how to get up on all fours last evening and today I managed to catch it on video. I love it! Those of you checking my blog that aren't family - I promise to soon be posting about other....well, stuff...but what can I say? I'm obsessed with my kids!

Paul can Crawl!

Well, almost. Our 5 month old is showing signs of mobility! Check out his cute little scoot (around 00:22 on the video).

Back to the Drawing Board

...or sketch pad as the case may be with me. I've lamented a few times on this blog about having let my art go to the way-side ever since my first pregnancy. It's been nagging at me all this time and I really do miss it. So yesterday with my husband and two year old out of the house for a camping trip I took advantage of the quiet and quasi-freedom to sketch a bit. Ugh...painful. The best I produced, which is really not that great, is this 3 minute sketch of an owl (I used a photo I found on-line to sketch from). Terrible.

The proportions are all off, the eyes are all wonky, it's a terrible shame. I plan to try and sketch something every day and try to get my raw skills back up. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a paintbrush again sometime soon. But working in time to sketch is far easier than working in time to paint. I can sketch with little issue while my son is around, but the instant those paints and brushes come out I'll be hearing a constant loud mantra of "P help, P help, P help!" from my son.

I'm a bitch and my kids are brats!

You know me...peaks and valleys....feast and famine...

I'll do 3 posts in one day and then go silent for a week. So here I am after a long silence and what has me blogging? A gripe of course!

So...the boys and I are in Starbuck's today, post playground and very hot, tired and hungry. I grab a sandwich and Peter gets his favorite fruit cheese and crackers thingy. We sit down to eat (Paul by the way is strapped to my chest in the carrier sound asleep) and before I can get the food out I swear I hear the woman across from us sigh loudly and say Oh God, here we go. I figure she's talking to her laptop and continue with getting our food out and on the table.

Peter is busy swinging his feet while he sits in his seat and watching out the window for dogs. "Mama, Dogs come?" he keeps saying over and over while his foot bangs on the table. "I'm sure they will, keep watching." Bang...Bang...Bang.... (his foot still going on the table).

OK, I say, food is ready, dig in.

Another sigh from laptop chick. Again, I have to assume she's frustrated with something she is reading.

Peter cheers loudly for the food. He cheers anytime you tell him anything is ready, it's just his happy nature. :)

More grunts and noise from laptop chick.

Peter is still banging his foot on the table, asking about dogs, eating his food and frankly being very good. He stands up in his seat and screeches...DOGS MAMA!!! OH GOOD, I say. He watches the dogs walk by and starts naming the colors of the dogs and exclaiming there are two.

Laptop chick is on her cell phone now. I here her explaining to some person on the phone that she was having an impossible time concentrating because of (get this) "...some bitch and her little brats..."

OH..... anger!!! I couldn't believe it. A thousand remarks ran through my head of what I should say. A thousand ideas of what I should do. I realize I'm staring at her while I'm thinking all of this - no clue what the look on my face was.

The nerve of this woman, right? She's sitting in a public place, under the speakers of the loudly playing music I might add, and has the nerve to complain that my happy child watching dogs is a brat and that subsequently I'm a bitch?

I submit that someone else is a bitch.

So, an open note to all you public forum laptoppers:

Yes, it's super-cool that you have the latest color apple computer with which to peruse the Internet or "work"; but please, seriously, don't expect peace and quiet to work - YOU ARE IN A PUBLIC PLACE IN A BUSY CITY WHERE LIFE HAPPENS!! If you want quiet, take that swanky laptop to the only public place where you are guaranteed quiet: the library.

Rant is complete. Yes, I really do feel better now, thank you.

The Simple Days of my Childhood...

If only I were Plastic Man...I've thought this at least 100 thousand times since my first son was born. "If only I were plastic man I could form my arms into a cradle shape and gently ease him into the crib without him waking." or, "If only I were plastic man I could reach that damn burp cloth across the room without waking the sleeping baby in my arms."

Plastic man is my new favorite super hero. I didn't think much of him when I was a kid. I was ALL about Super Girl and Wonder Woman! I even had the Wonder Woman Underoos, so you KNOW I was a real fan! What ever happened to Underoos? Are they still around? If they are, do they make adult versions? I'd totally wear them...I'm sure my husband would just love it! Seems like these super heroes aren't as big of a deal as they were when I was kid.

I have the best memories of playing Superfriends with my next door neighbor, Chris. My sister was always the villain we had to get away from. We would pretend to fly by jumping off the bumper of Chris' mom's Volkswagen Beetle (yellow of course).

Chris was the instigator in a lot of my childhood memories. The apartments we lived in backed up to a big patch of woods and had a creek running through it; we weren't allowed back there. So you know the first thing we did when the parents went inside was hit the woods. I remember we once found a man camping back there and thought it was the coolest thing.

We once hid in the tall, tall grass that bordered the woods and watched as cars coming into the apartments rolled over our landmines we placed in the street (a row of rocks from one side of the drive to the other). It was a great hiding place, virtually none of the drivers ever saw us when they inevitably stopped their cars and got out to see what they rolled over.

Oh yeah and then there was the day Chris got a brand new bike. We raced around the neighborhood me on my pink huffy and him on his black whatever-kind-of-bike he had. Chris was popping wheelies all the time and for some reason my pink Huffy wasn't constructed for such an act, I couldn't get it up. I finally did and of course fell all the way back and knocked the wind out of me. Chris thought I was dieing and went and got his Mom.

Ahhh...the simple days of childhood.

I leave you with this awesome photo of my Mom, sister and I in our very 1970s outfits that I think my Mom had made (I'm the one on the right):

What's your best childhood memory?

*Images of Plastic Man and Underoos came from Wikimedia

Paul Eating a Teething Biscuit

Another post? Well, yes - I have the video camera out today! Here's a quick (maybe longer than it should be) clip of Paul gumming on a teething biscuit. Yes, he's only 5 months old but he cut his first tooth at 2 months, so ...yeah, they're needed and he's ready. I just watch him carefully to make sure no giant chunks break off and choke him. It's definitely not something I leave him alone with. Other things Paul eats: pureed peas, bananas and rice cereal. I haven't gotten around to the oatmeal - we kind of skipped right over that. Paul LOVES to eat, he grabs the spoon when it gets near him and he shoves it in his mouth. I'll have to enlist Mark's help to get a video of that (hard to feed Paul and video tape him).

Anyway, here's Paul chomping on the teething biscuit:

Peter explains his Birthday plans

I mentioned in this post that Peter had explained what he'll have at his birthday party. I attempted to get him to do it again for the camera this morning. Sorry about how noisy it is in the video - that's Paul in the background fussing at his toys, I promise he's not being ignored that's just how he gets mad that he can't reach a toy.

Urban vs. Suburban

Such an obvious topic with such easy and obvious pros and cons. So I'll not get into that. What has me posting today was a conversation I recently had with an acquaintance who lives out in the suburbs. While discussing some other subject she casually mentioned something about the kids always falling asleep during errands and how although running errands was a pain it was nice to get home and have some peace and quiet for a bit after the errands.

I asked how she gets them out of the car seats and into bed without waking them. Honestly, I was ready with pen and paper to write down this bit of advice because I can never make the transition without the kids waking. Her response (got your pen and paper ready?): "Oh I just let them sleep it off in the car."

WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What I thought:

Immediately thought of the countless stories I've heard of babies roasting to their death strapped into their car seats in the summer heat. What the hell...it's hot out! .... there are crazies who will steal your children...do you leave the car running for the a/c? If so, are you concerned the kids will disengage the break (her toddler can let himself out of his car seat)?! what the F*&*?! How are you someone I know...how have your children survived you this long?! JESUS CHRIST!

What I said:

"Oh. Well, that's not something I can do in the city."

Seriously, even if she does have a garage (not sure, never been to her new home)... this just makes me uncomfortable to know it's going on. My precious cargo will NEVER be left unattended in the car like that ... NEVER!

Please, someone, post a response and tell me I'm overreacting, put my mind at ease...give me some scenario where this might be OK...because this woman has lost my respect and I'm sitting here worrying for her kids right now!

Peter on Birthdays

Peter went to a birthday party about 2 or 3 weeks ago and after the day of the party all conversations or remarks about birthdays were finished and I thought out of his memory...guess I was wrong!

The latest conversation with Peter:

P: P have birthday?

Me: You want to know when your birthday is?

P (frustrated): No! P HAVE birthday!

Me: You want to HAVE a birthday?

P: Yes, Mama.

Me: OH! What do you want to have at your birthday?

P: Have candles.

Me:Yes...

P: Have cake.

P: Have party.

Me: Who should come to your party?

P: Joe comes, Mama comes, dada comes, Jim comes (I have to find out who this Jim is), Baba comes (that one surprised me bec. he so rarely gets to see his Baba), Grama comes, JJ comes

Me: Should we have games?

P: No!

Me: What else will we do at your birthday?

P: SING!!!!!!! yaaaa!!!

He starts dancing around the floor.

He'll have to wait until January for that party to happen, and I don't think all the requests can be met since his Baba lives in Montreal and we never did meet or find out who Jim was in his summer camp. But I'm sure Peter will enjoy his party whatever we do. But family...if you can make it, we'd love to have you all here. This will be the first real birthday party we throw for Peter, well, at least where we invite "friends" and not just a family only party.

Still no clue what I'm going to do for a party in the middle of January when it's cold outside...guess I'll clear out all the furniture and let the kids run wild in the house! I'll take those birthday party ideas anytime!! Peter will be three.

*Picture of cake came from this blog: http://blog.pinkcakebox.com/polka-dot-birthday-cake-2007-07-22.htm

Summer Camp is Over *sigh*

Ah well, summer camp for my 2 year old is over. I sigh because I know it was fun for him and I sigh in relief because thank God it's over for me. Why? See this post.

What are we left with from summer camp? We have a broadened vocabulary that includes "Sorry" and "Sorry, mama" Which is already being over-used. Other new words and phrases attributed to the summer camp experience are:

- Booger

- Attack!

- Mine (not a surprise on that one)

- Share

- My turn

- No please

- Jim did it (we never did get to meet Jim, but it seems he did a lot of things and continues to do them in our home)

I know there are others, I just can't get them to come to mind right now. We also came away from Summer camp with a whole host of crafts and photos. In the end, a good experience for all!

How to Eat Waffles

I recorded this a while ago, but I don't think I posted it anywhere except on YouTube and since none of the family goes there to view the vast library of videos (Hint, hint) I thought I'd post this one, it's a favorite!

Paul Likes to Bounce!

OK... he LOVES to bounce. This kid is a maniac on the bouncer! Check him out (this is at 5:30 in the morning!!!):

Chatting with Peter

Peter heading off to school this morning -

all we ever get anymore is the "cheese" face.

Today was a really great day for chatting with Peter. He had me in stitches and I just can't wait to see what he comes up with as he gets older. Let's see if I can remember everything we discussed today.

This morning before going off to school Peter asked (as he does every morning):

P: "Dada go work?"

Us: yes

P: "Peter go work?"

Me: Peter, you want to go to work with daddy?

P (quiet a while [I guess thinking]): "No, Peter go work school." :)

My husband has been driving Peter to school for me this week so all I have to do is take the bus to pick him up in the afternoon. So I guess Peter figured he was going to work too.

On the way home today we're sitting in the bus and, not looking away from the window (as if in deep thought), Peter says:

P: Mama?

Me: Yes?
P: P have puppy? (Peter often refers to himself as P, thanks to my husband calling him this)

Me: You want a puppy?

P: Yes

Me: What kind of puppy?

P (without hesitation): GREEN!

Me (laughing): Where do we get a green puppy?

P (pause for thought): School.

I have questions for the school tomorrow. :)

I over heard this as Peter and my husband were making their way upstairs for their bedtime routine:

Husband: We'll have a nice bath, read some books, snuggle in and go to sleep.

P: No bath

Husband: Maybe we will just wash up real quick.

P: No fast bath.

Husband: Well, I don't know...you had lots of fun at school and are dirty. Let's just wash the dirty spots.

P (frustrated): No dirty spots

No bath was taken. I think Peter got a quick wipe down with a wash cloth. :)

Bento to Go!

Peter has been in summer camp since the end of July. Although, we are forced to refer to it as summer school, because the first day of summer camp when we said - "Are you ready for summer camp?" Peter jumped up and down and shrieked with sooo much excitement because he thought he was going camping and wanted to bring his tent his grandmother had given him last Christmas. This one:

Anyway, summer school has been a great experience for Peter. He goes three times a week from 9:00am to 1:00pm. Silly me, I thought I was going to get a little break this summer while he was away - but didn't pause to think what a half day meant for me in travel time. As I've mentioned numerous times...we are a one car family. That one car goes to work with my dear husband and the kids and I hoof-it everywhere. Not a big deal, in fact I prefer it. I always feel like I'm unpacking the circus every time I get the opportunity to keep the car...it's a real pain in the butt! It's soooo sooo much easier to pack up the stroller and whip out the door than to haul the baby car seat to the car and get hoisted in, then get the toddler strapped in, then the stroller goes in the trunk and the diaper bag in the back seat - no wait, move it to the front seat because the toddler likes to unpack the diaper bag and throw the contents everywhere. Add to the fact we are rarely in the car my son gets super-duper antsy really fast when we are finally in the car. Because when we take the stroller he can hop out and walk whenever he wants.

ANYWAY, I got off on a tangent, what the point is...getting to Peter's summer camp is a series of buses and walking that takes roughly and hour to an hour and a half (it's a 10 min. drive in the car). So...up in the morning, haul the kids on the bus (which Peter enjoys immensely!) and drop Peter at school. Paul and I get back on the bus to go home, get Paul down for a nap and as soon as he's up we're back on the buses to pick Peter up and THEN BACK on the buses again to get home. Whew...it's tiring and I'm thankful this is the last week.

Still...another tangent...the POINT to this post is Peter's lunches! I've been having so much fun finding cute little things to send off for Peter's lunch time. I really enjoy packing away little surprises for him. (I'll post some other time about my mistake of sending cheese-peanut butter crackers to school...ooo ...that was bad news!). ANYWAY (again off on a tangent)...I bought these adorable bento boxes for Peter to use while in school. Never mind I didn't get them until last week - I plan for him to use them when he starts daycare this fall. Here's my first bento to go for Peter...so fun making these!!!

Adding Social Book Marking to your Blog Posts

I'm new to blogging, and frankly got started like most people by blogging for an audience of close family and friends. My audience has been slowly expanding and as my addicition to share my thoughts and opinions with the world at-large grows I find I increasingly want to spruce up my page. One day I may actually dig in and create my own page design, but for now I'll just stick to the free backgrounds I find at Cutest Blog on The Block.

My latest adventure in sprucing up my page had to do with adding the social networking buttons to the bottom of my posts. Mostly becuase I wanted to be able to easily share my own posts with my facebook friends without having to copy the URL and paste it to facebook. So I Googled how to do it and dug and read and researched and FINALLY found a page that gave me step-by-step holding my hand directions. LOVE IT!! So now I have the share this post icon at the bottom of each post. If don't know what I'm talking about it's this icon:

Go ahead and hover your mouse over it...cool huh? I'm no genious, I just followed this Blog Doctor guy's instructions.

Happy Blogging!

The Truth or a Big Fat Lie - THE ANSWER

Let me start by stating two things. First, I can't tell you how flattered (read with sarcasm) I am that so many of you think I can belch half the alphabet...not one person voted that this was the lie! Second, how sad that only five people voted...very sad...what? You don't like polls? It was totally anonymous...pht..whatever. ;)

Here are the Answers:

1. Both my ex husband and my current husband are named Mark. True
   
   
2. Can belch half the alphabet. BIG FAT LIE! How, why, did you all think I could or would even try this?!! soo soo funny !!! OK, as I'm typing this my Mom swears she voted this as my lie but it just didn't show on the results..hmmm...ok Mom...
   
   
3. I am a physics/black holes/theory of all things fanatic! Totally True, I love reading about black holes and new theories in physics. I love reading what they've most recently discovered - it's like the true final frontier! I spend most of my time reading an article - hitting a word or subject I know little about and then off to the Internet to look up the word or topic ...then back to the article. So, yeah, it's slow going my reading/comprehension of the topic...but I love it!
   
   
4. I have been known to make an entire batch of homemade chocolate icing with the soul intention of eating it straight from the bowl. TRUE!!
   
   
5. Once traveled to California to meet a guy I had only known on the Internet. TRUE
   
   
6. Shot a hand gun at age six. TRUE, actually i might have been younger. Hey, my sister was two years younger than me and shot the same gun that day! Four years old!! OK, here's the deal. My mom's boyfriend at the time had a huge bit of land in Tennessee. We were sitting on a small cliff he let us shoot the gun out across the ditch/cliff. SO...now that I have kids...I can say "way to go Mom"; you win NO PRIZES for this one! Sitting on a cliff?! Shooting hand guns?! Frankly, my mom didn't know...we were out there with him and if my six-year-old's memory is correct several of my mom's friends...so WAY TO GO ex-boyfriend/mom's friends...way to step up and say "hey, this child firing a handgun thing...yeah, that might not be a good idea." :)
   
   
7. Spent $200 to have a half pound of French chocolate express shipped to me. TRUE
   
   
8. Took a West coast touring vacation by myself from Seattle down to San Diego for my 30th bday; staying in youth hostels almost the whole way. TRUE, this was right after 9/11 too! I traveled I think it was just a few days after...I wasn't sure I was going to get to go because all the planes had been grounded. but they partially opened up the skies the day I was to leave. No one was on my flight except for like 5 of us. We were all bumped up to first class!
   
   
9. Traveled to Los Angeles to live in an artist commune for two weeks. TRUE, but it's a bit of a stretch - so if you voted for this one as my lie - i might have to give it to you. It's sort of wrapped up in the meeting a guy I only knew on the Internet thing...
   
   
10. Used to have competitions with my sister to see who could do the best #1 sign with their big toes. OH so TRUE! God, I crack up thinking about it now. :)