9.20.2007

Number Jungle

Nowadays in kindergarten they teach them their phone number and address, which is good but kind of a hassle. Of course, Lily is just too smart for this sort of thing. This is what her teacher told me. When she asked if anyone knew their phone number, Lily said: "Yes. My number is 2."
"But your phone number can't be 2."
"Yes it is!!"
"No, there's more than one number in your phone number."
"Oh, it is 2 and then TALK."
"Let's learn your whole phone number."
"My number is 2 and than TALK. Nana's is 3, and Mimi's is 4. Taryn is 5 and my friend Skylar is 9."
You see, my cell phone has speed dial, and I taught Lily who is on which number because I got tired of her bringing the phone to me and asking me to dial a certain person for her. Plus, every person she meets she wants to give our phone number to, and so I told her to tell her friends her phone number was 2.
Now I have to rewire her brain to accommodate this information, which is baffling her.
"But Mom. YOU SAID my phone number was 2."
"I know."
"So I said 2!"
"But it's not. It's really a long number."
"So.... you LIED to me?"
"Oh good grief...."
To help her remember the real phone number, I made up a little rhyme since she's been on a rhyming thing lately ("Mom! SNOT and POT! They RHYME!!"). It goes something like this:
**5, I've got the vibe!
**8, I'm getting them straight!
***3, that's the number for me!
I thought it was good but she just looked at me weird, even when I tried to convince her it was cool and she could even dance to it if she wanted. She wasn't buying it. She just went on drawing and said
"Mom. You look so funny."

***Notes from Mom***
There's nothing like having your kids make you feel stupid.

My Mimi Moment 2

"Hey babe."
"Yeah?"
"You put our anniversary on the calendar on the 23rd."
"Yup."
"It's on the 27th."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. Here, let me fix it....."
--grabs pen and draws an arrow from the 23rd to the 27th--
"That looks nice."
"You know what's really funny?"
"What?"
"There's a plaque right over there on the wall that says
'United In Love
James and Talia
September 27th, 2003'."

Pieces Of Me

I got this wild crack head idea yesterday that I would try waxing my legs for the following reasons:
1. We're going out for our anniversary this weekend.
2. The waxing strips were on sale.
3. If this went terribly wrong, I'd have one really funny blog to write.
Guess what happened.
So I buy the crap and get home and prop my leg on the coffee table because I'm really out of shape and I can't put my feet on the floor and bend over my gut to see my legs. I follow the directions:
Rub the strip between your hands to warm it.
Place it on the leg.
Rub in the direction of hair growth for five seconds.
Rip it off.
Honestly, it didn't hurt that bad. I liked ripping off my epidermis, which is exactly what happened. I lost the first layer of skin BUT NO HAIR. Tell me how that's possible! It's not! Only for me! So now the only thing that works to remove my leg hair is shaving. I've tried depilatories, all of them, and now cold waxing. With the results I got, I won't be trying hot wax any time soon. I tried re-waxing, but that was kinda hurting. Plus, the following objects were now glued to the coffee table:
My foot.
My cell phone.
Six wax strips.
A washcloth.
A child.
(Hey, she wanted to stick her finger on it, so I let her. I bet she doesn't do it again!)
So I gave up and went upstairs and shaved my legs. Now, I don't know if the waxing, the shaving or an allergic reaction contributed to my results, but here they are:

I hope you can see the pieces of my skin that are missing/flaking off. So much for "Sexy, smooth legs for up to four weeks!!" This sh*t hurts.
P.S.
You can click on them to make them bigger. The third one really is AWESOME.


9.13.2007

Little Boy Blue

I woke up this morning..... and Caleb's legs were blue.
Apparently, he'd gotten up in the night and decided to eat some blueberries. Only one got into his mouth I'm guessing, because seven were smashed into his sheet and t-shirt. The sheets were salvageable because they were already blue. But his shirt, a white one that James brought from Egypt, was not. Hey at least they didn't get on the carpet, right? Oh, and did you know that blueberries stain skin too? He still has blue splotches on his legs. They look like Arabian chicken pox or something.

Now that Lily is in school, Caleb and I have had more time together, and I am really beginning to see his personality emerge. He loves to be read to, which is great but kind of frustrating sometimes, like when I'm in the bathroom. Oh, and he's discovered The Pagemaster. Uuuggghhh! He's watched that stinking movie 18 times in one week!! What's worse is he alternates with Jumanji, which is equally irritating. "Mom! Look at the rinotherous! An the elefunts!! They running!! De monkeys are getting in trouble. Dere momma gonna spank dem."

In the potty training area, we're still working on getting him to poop in the toilet. I've run out of ideas. I'm not using maxi pads in his underwear anymore because I got tired of changing his tighty whiteys when he "missed." Now another problem has emerged: he can't keep the stream in the toilet! I am constantly wiping pee off the seat and floor, then assailing it with Lysol ("Mom, dere's smoke in here!"). I think his problem is he gets going and then gets distracted, but when I try to keep him on target he says "Stop looking at me, Mom!"
"Well, keep your pee in the potty!"
"I'm trying but it just goes EVERYWHERE!"
He cracks me up.

9.12.2007

Travelling With The B's

"Mom, what town are we in?"
"Cleburne."
"What comes after Cleburne?"
"I don't know."
"What comes after I don't know?"
"I said I don't know."
"What comes after I said I don't know?"
"Lily!"
"What comes after Lily?"
"A spanking."
"What comes after a spanking?"
"Lily stop!"
"What comes after Lily stop?"
--silence--
"Mom."
--quiet--
"Mom!"
--nothing--
"MOM!!"
"What?!"
"Are we still in Cleburne?"
"Yes, Lily."
"What comes after Cleburne?"

Conversation With My Body 2

"Heeeelllpppp meeeeee........"
"Did you hear that?"
"Heeeellllpppp meeee...."
"Who is making that racket?"
"I think it's Body."
"Oh good grief, what now?"
"Heeellllppp meeeee......"
"What do you want?"
"Thank goodness you're here! Throw me a line!"
"What?"
"I'm drowning!! Help me!!"
"You are not drowning, Body."
"How would you know? You just sit up there all day and think, think think...."
"Oh really. Tell me, how can you be drowning if you're not even near a body of water?"
"I'm drowning in FRUIT and VEGETABLES and WHOLE GRAINS!!"
"I'm out of here."
"You know what would save me? A double cheeseburger. It floats! And some fries for paddles would be nice."
"Whatever."
"No don't go! Seriously!! I need help!"
"You need a heavy sedative."
"Get me that cheeseburger before I DIE!!!"

9.05.2007

RE: Kindergarten

This came from my cousin Lauren after she read my post about kindergarten:

"Tell Tally everybody in the office says she needs to
put together a book! So stinking hilarious!
It's even better that we're the same age and go
through some of the same life situations around the
same time. Man, that girl makes me laugh!!"

Okay, first of all, the "Tally." GAG. I hate that nickname. It makes me think of tally mark, tally whacker or tally sticks. Second, she may have two kids around the same age as mine, but we DO NOT go through the same life situations. Her kids are angels compared to mine. How many times has one covered the other with diaper rash cream? Or smothered the guinea pig with hand sanitizer? Or painted the walls with their feces? Or killed two pets? Or stopped up the bathtub with toilet paper?
When her kids come around I see well behaved, polite, clean little people.
When my kids come around people usually scramble to get away, especially the cashiers at Wal-Mart.

Camping With The B's

Every Labor Day a friend of ours has a camp out on her ranch and we usually try to go, if no major calamities occur. Holy Cheez Whiz, what was I thinking?!
We got down to the campsite, which is by a river and in the middle of nowhere and set up camp. We'd gotten a four man tent and a queen size air mattress, and there wasn't much room for our stuff. Do you know how much crap you have to pack to go camping? Good grief! We had two big bags, a cooler, three bags of non-cooler food, pillows, the mattress and tent, chairs, and sheets just to name a few items. We hardly had room for the kids in the car. So we stuff everything into the tent and the kids immediately find the "dirt pit," which is a pile of dirt that leads down to the river. Red dirt, not regular dirt. But this is our vacation, right? I let them play.
Soon it was time for bed. It had been raining off and on all day so we had to put the rain tarp over the tent, then we all piled in (after we peed in the bushes, mind you).
Let me tell you just in case you were wondering.... two adults and two kids cannot sleep comfortably on a queen size air mattress. Well, one adult and two kids can, but I couldn't. I had to sleep by Lily, which is like sleeping with an octopus because she snuggles up to you and the more you try to get away from her the more arms and legs she sprouts to hang onto you with. Plus, it was hotter than Hades in that freaking tent, and I cannot sleep when I am sweating. So I tossed and turned until, oh, three a.m. Every time I got away from Lily I got uncomfortable and had to roll over, which meant she rolled down into the hole I created while sitting up to turn over. Then I have to try and push her back up "the hill" while rolling over the opposite way and.... it was a big mess. Plus every time I moved everyone else moved, and that made me feel nice and fat.
In case you didn't know, my kids get up at the butt crack of dawn, and James sleeps until noon if he doesn't have to work. So guess who got up with the kids? Yup. It was me. We're up and we all get dressed in the little bitty tent that only they can stand up in, and they go play in the dirt. James gets up about four hours later, and we have a pretty good day. It was only 95 degrees outside, the kids had three playmates and five Labs to harass plus a pool to swim in, and so far I hadn't had to poop.
And then......
That wench Aunt Flo shows up. Stupid ho. But, I had come prepared, and there was a nice couple down there in a $90,000 travel trailer who let us use their bathroom when we needed to. So now we didn't have to do our business in the woods anymore. Which was great because every time Lily had to pee she would meticulously pick a spot, circle around to make sure it wasn't infested with insects, squat, start peeing, see some ants and jump up screaming while still peeing and inevitably get pee on her shoes as well as mine.
Bedtime again. This time we put the kids to bed with a flashlight and go mingle with the adult folk, who have a karaoke machine, hurricanes and gardaritas or whatever they were called. Soon everyone is drunk except for me, even though I had four fairly good sized drinks, and singing karaoke. It was fun. Then I got bored and went to bed,while James stayed up to croon with the other alley cats.
About an hour later I get up to bring James to bed, because the last time he got drunk he fell in the bathroom and nearly knocked himself unconscious. After searching for a few minutes and not finding him, I start asking the others if they'd seen him. Have you ever tried to get pertinent information from a drunk?
"Hey guys, have y'all seen James?"
--blank looks--
"Um, he was here when I went to bed and now I can't find him."
"Was he drinking?"
"Umm, yeah."
"What was he drinking?"
WTF? "Bud Light."
"Hey, I think this is his beer!" --holds up a can--
"Do you know where he is?"
"No man, I just found it over there on the table and started drinking it."
"Umm, okay, but did you see where he went?"
"He probably had to pee 'cause we gotta pee sometimes."
"Really? That's fascinating."
"What, man?"
"Nothing, man."
So I grab the flashlight and guess where I find him? Sitting in a chair outside our tent. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was sleeping upright because he thought he would puke downright. Then he asked me for the bug spray. I went back to bed. I slept a lot better that night, I guess due to the drinks. The next morning we all get up and eat breakfast, and the kids go play. Soon, they are back, covered in mud. I look at James and ask him if he's ready to leave. He is.
I guess I'm just not the camping type. I don't like bugs that are bigger than my foot, sleeping in an overly crowded hot tent, peeing in a bush, and drinking unidentified drinks in 90 degree weather. It was a pretty good trip, overall, but call me hoity toity, I was ready to go home. Plus I was hormonal, and hormones without air conditioning is just asking for trouble.