Sep 8, 2017 | Sesame, Uncategorized |
Sesame Pie loves to play out in the Hundred Acres Woods of our backyard. Tigger, Pooh, Owl, Piglet, Rabbit and Christopher Robin all have their own homes. We always look for them when we’re out playing but they’re never home.
A few days I put Tigger out by his home. I told AB he was home and we rushed out to see him. She was beyond tickled to find him.
Unfortunately I missed the window of opportunity for her to believe that he was the real Tigger who actually appeared there on his own. She asked if he was her Tigger stuffed animal I brought from inside. Even so she thought it was so fun for him to really be in her woods.
They danced and sang and went on the swing together. It was the sweetest thing.
Sep 5, 2017 | Uncategorized |
Mom and Elizabeth have been visiting for the last week. They’ve been here many times so we no longer have the urge to show them all the local sites. Don’t get the idea there we have many local attractions of interest. We have a few attractions worth noting, a number of playgrounds and a pet store. Mom is always able to find every historical site no matter the city and she learned about a nearby fort built in 1726. It served an a military base used by several different countries until 1963.
I knew we’d be doing a lot of walking so AB kindly lent me her most compact yet fashionable backpack.
Even though Annabelle is only 3 I occasionally like taking her to attractions that aren’t child geared. I explained the museum and some of the artifacts to her and she understood quite a bit. She really latched onto the fact that soldiers used to live there. She told Elizabeth “the soldiers were so handsome.” She picked up a phone, put it to her ear and said she was calling “her soldiers.” She comes by this attraction naturally. It’s in our DNA.
I’ve been to many a fort in my life and this was easily the best. The rooms were set up similar to back in the day and almost the entire thing could be walked through/touched/sat on. In front of the window was a table and two chairs. Annabelle sat down and demanded I “pretend eat pancakes” with her while Grammy was our waitress.
Elizabeth was poking around and found these hidden in a chest in the guard house. The pink feather boa and Libman dustpan are most certainly genuine artifacts of the 2010’s.
We had a picnic supper near the fort. I took 25 pictures of the sunset. Sesame, as she always does, made herself at home in the sand and would have stayed for hours. She’d sit in the middle of the highway to play with sand and dirt.
We stopped by the falls on the way home to see them lit up.
Before we left I brought AB to the potty. I touched her face and said “you have a messy face from your crackers.” She looked at me for a minute, touched my face and said “You have a weird face.” She’s so good for my self esteem! I wished she had compared me to the beautiful lights instead.
Sep 1, 2017 | Uncategorized |
* I’ve been trying to take more pictures of Christopher and I. I took this on a walk last Sunday. I was moderately satisfied with how I look but I wasn’t too sure about Christopher. I asked if we should take it again when he was smiling. He said he was smiling. One day I’ll learn to understand his facial expressions.
* Annabelle loves the statue of the polar bear mom and baby at the zoo. She runs up and hugs it every time. She likes the real thing too. “He’s so yittle and cute I wish I could just hug him. Hi, yittle buddy!”
* Mr. Jim came over when AB was eating her snack. She brought him a fig newton and they shared a snack at her picnic table. They were talking about an upcoming trip we’re taking and he said “what I am going to do without seeing you every day?”
* I seldom compare myself to Noah, but we both went through forty day trials. I tried potty training this kid for FORTY DAYS without success.
Given the number of accidents I cleaned up I’d say we both had watery trials. Thank goodness I only have to clean up after one and not the untold number of animals Noah and Mrs. Noah dealt with. We took a few weeks off Potty Training Intensive to recover/regroup/mourn 40 wasted days. Mom is here and I unselfishly let her have a go at the impossible task. This darling child refused to pee for 10 (TEN) hours today but she finally went on her Minnie Mouse potty. I won’t dare to say the end is in sight, but I am so proud she finally did it. I almost cried tears of joy. Here’s hoping by the end of September I’ll be saying she’s fully potty trained. Good thing she’s cute!
Aug 26, 2017 | In a People House, Uncategorized, What's going on |
* Wednesday was seven years since Christopher and I met. We’ve been married a little over 6 years so if you do the math we pretty much got married three minutes after meeting. I had a physical in the afternoon so we commemorated the day by high-fiving as we met in the OBGYN waiting room to do a child hand over.
I am not a fan of my annual physical. I don’t like wearing the paper gown. I don’t like being surrounded by posters of the female reproductive system. I don’t like being reminded that my extra pounds can’t really be called “baby weight” anymore. I hate the required exam of the neither regions. I tell myself she’s seen hundreds of people and for a while it helped, then I realized the problem with that logic is I don’t show hundreds of people. I just lay there and hope for the best. The doctor is friendly but it’s weird when she’s telling me about how her 13yo twins almost burned down her house while going about her business. Does it have to be social hour?
I ran into Tuesday Morning after my appointment to congratulate myself for making it through another appointment. I had to cut my shopping short because Christopher called and said he had to go back into work. He more than made up for my canceled shopping trip with the following texts.
I’ll keep him around for a few more years.
* Just when our yard had finally recovered from the patio fiasco, Mr Jim decided to have a new roof put on. They come at 7:30am and cause a ruckus until 6:30pm. The pounding never stops. The dishes shake in the cupboard. My poor garden has almost been squashed beyond repair.
Our kitchen is little and there’s no practical place for the trash can so we have it in the garage. I opened the door between the kitchen and the garage to throw something away and shingles came crashing down in front of my face. I looked up and saw the sky through what used to be the garage roof. The floor was covered in shingles, dirt and screws. I’m so shy I didn’t want to face the 8 guys about it but I didn’t want to clean up the mess myself. Then I saw our fake Christmas tree getting covered in dirt. That was too much. A line was crossed. I told myself they’re providing a service and I’m the customer they need to keep happy. They don’t need to know Mr. Jim signed the check and not me. I finally got the attention of Jorge (not his actual name) and apologized for bothering him, but if it wasn’t too much…I mean, if he get a chance…would he mind finding a tarp for the garage? All our stuff is getting dirty. Again, I’M SO SORRY TO BOTHER YOU. Jorge looked momentarily startled (English might not be his first language) but he paused the whole roof production to look for a tarp. Between you and I, I think they were hoping I wouldn’t notice the mess. As if I wouldn’t notice a Christmas tree in danger!
I’m so sorry. I just told you the most boring, anti climactic story in the history of the internet.
* I took Sesame to the playground to escape the banging. Someone tell me where my baby went! Who’s this kid with long legs?
* I don’t mean to brag (or maybe I do), but for 45 minutes every single piece of laundry in my house was either on us or clean and put away. ALL OF IT. This morning I deep cleaned the refrigerator so feel free to call me Martha Stewart and mail me a Wife of the Year award. Or reward me with French fries.
Aug 22, 2017 | Uncategorized, What's going on |
Viewing: the eclipse. I don’t know if you heard, but there was an eclipse today. The newscasters may have mentioned it 1 or 712 times.
I ordered a pair of special glasses off Ebay. Several friends said businesses in their towns were giving away free glasses but I couldn’t find any. It seemed like a wiser move to spend $12 on glasses than stupidly stare at the sun and be hit with huge hospital bills. I saw directions for making a pinhole viewer at home so I tried to make one out of a cheerios box. It was a failure. I stood in the yard holding a box up to my face and no doubt looking like an idiot. I saw nothing but the bottom of the box. I must have done something wrong but I don’t have much experience staring into cereal boxes. The event as a whole was less exciting than I anticipated but I am glad I bought the glasses and had my NASA shirt to wear.
Watching: the documentary When the Bough Breaks about post partum depression. Some parts are very sad and brought me back to darker days when AB was younger, but it’s very well done and an important movie.
Explaining: the pictures in all our photo albums to curious Sesame. No, I don’t know what Daddy said to you right after you were born. No, you didn’t play on a playground in my belly. No, you weren’t at our wedding. Yes, we smelled the flowers. Yes, that’s Grammy. No, you didn’t live in Grammy’s belly.
Shopping at: Homegoods. I went yesterday and almost came home with a copper pineapple and a sign that says “welcome to the ranch.” The second I walk in that store I suddenly decide our house won’t be complete without everything in sight.
Smelling: my sage Yankee Candle.
Sad about: the end of summer. We’ll squeeze in all the fun we can in September, but I wish we had one more month of real summer. The splash pads all close after this week and they’ve been a highlight of our summer. I’m not ready for another long winter of being stuck in the house.
Harvesting: tomatoes, green beans and a carrot. In an attempt to not have too many carrots I accidentally didn’t plant enough seeds. I think we have a grand total of 8. We picked the first one on Saturday and Annabelle could not have been more thrilled.
Disclosure– This post contains an affiliate link which may earn me an ice coffee.
Aug 18, 2017 | Uncategorized |
Many years ago, Autumn, Joanna and I formed the Single Ladies Club. Since the founding of the club I’ve gotten married and the other two have gone through various relationships, but we have never considered changing the name. The Married and Two Recently Singled Ladies Club doesn’t have the same ring. Our theme song has always been Beyonce’s Single Ladies. I’m not a huge Beyonce fan but we couldn’t have found a more appropriate song.
They came to visit over the weekend and I brought out my special poster. The first summer Joanna came for her now annual visit was less than a week after we moved to Fort Campbell. Almost nothing was decorated so I made this poster and hung it in the bathroom. It’s become the official poster of Joanna’s visits.
They arrived early early Sunday morning. 12:30 AM early. I went to bed and set an alarm for 12:15. I’m too old to miss any hours of precious sleep. Autumn said there was a meteor shower that night so we sat on our new patio watching the stars and catching up.
After church on Sunday we went grocery shopping and to Walgreens. Don’t say I don’t know how to show my guests a good time! I went into Walgreens for a prescription and came out with a slip’n’slide. We showed Annabelle how to use it.
Monday we took them hiking. I’ve been to the park twice before but never drove so I never paid attention to the directions. The lady at the gate told us how to get to the falls but either she misspoke or I misheard (more likely) because we didn’t end up at the falls. We ended up at the other end of the park where we had no choice but to exit, turn around and go back in. The lady at that gate told us to drive 14 miles in the other direction. We finally found the right parking lot and walked about a mile to the bottom of the falls. The view wasn’t too shabby.
There are paths leading from the bottom falls to the middle falls and finally the falls at the top. The first trail was short enough for AB to on her own. She had a minor meltdown on the way back thanks to the heat and the fact that it was the middle of nap time so Aunt Jojo carried her up the 187 steep steps. God bless her. I kept suggesting we stop so Joanna could have a break but she powered on. I was hoping she’d take me up on it since I wanted to rest! Sesame and I ended up sitting on a path playing in the sand while the other two did the second part of the trail. It ended up being a wise choice since they saw a snake.
To save Joanna’s back and AB’s emotions we drove to the very top waterfall. It’s so so pretty.
That night we rewarded ourselves for burning all those calories with THE BEST dessert ever from a chocolate restaurant in town. As we were waiting for them to box up our dessert one of the waitresses started talking about a show she started watching. “It’s really inspiring. It make me want to stop working here and join a drug cartel.” Well. I guess we’ll be seeing her on the news when the police break up whatever group she joins.
I loved having the girls here. We’ve been friends our entire lives and know each other so well. I loved seeing them with Sesame. They loved playing with her and she adores them. She asks when they’re coming back and when she can have a sleep over at their houses. They even sat on the floor with her for half an hour during what can only be called The Bathroom Trial of 2017. They’re true friends. I like them even better than I like the triple chocolate mousse dessert.
