Friendly Fun

Houseguests kept things fun and exciting this weekend. I hope they come back soon.

Fresh Moves

Look What We Got for $1

Merry Christmas from Sesame Street. And it is in mint condition. Angus is still in full-on Christmas mode, complete with carols and wishing folks Happy Holidays, so it was a timely purchase. The music is ehh, but the illustrations amaze me. The Sesame Street of today is not not up to the gold standard of my youth. The Elmo generation has no idea of how hip the Street once was.

Explore

Smoke stack of TVA chemical plant where elemental phosphorus is made, vicinity of Muscle Shoals, Alabama (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

If you haven't yet, go on over to Flickr and check out the Library of Congress' photostream. Thousands of images chronicling the history of photography, and the history of America, are waiting for you to discover them. It is an amazing collection. My favorites are the color slide images from the 1940s, rich with color and amazing in composition.

Also, check out this guy.
He tears open stuffed bears, unstuffs them, turns them inside out and then restuffs them. So super rad.

Sugary Sweetness

Favorite Angus quote of the Weekend: "No, Daddy. Put your hand down. Be quiet and eat your coffee." (This was after Tony dispensed a minor threat intended to hurry Angus' lunch-eating along.)
Favorite Triumph of the Weekend: Watching Angus overcome his two-year long intense fear of the Digestive System display at CMOR and hearing him say, "It's not scary! It's nice!"
Favorite Food of the Weekend: Peanut Butter Banana Muffins with cauliflower. Mmmmmmm. You have no idea how delicious these are......
Favorite Noah Moment of the Weekend: Watching him do the "scary feet" routine from Monsters, Inc.
Best Laugh of the Weekend: After Angus picked Noah up basically by the neck and carried him across the living room, he looked at his grandma and proudly proclaimed his method of baby hauling to be "just like mommy does!"
Best Natural Wonder of the Weekend: Butternut squash's heart-shaped cavity.

Monster Invasion

Angy's obsession of the moment is Monsters, Inc. He loves to pretend to be a monster coming out from under the bed and will throw you a cue if you miss your mark of when exactly and how exactly to show your fear. He wants very specific "Aaaahhhh!" type screams only. Nothing overdone or too showy. He will make you do it over the right way if you get too Broadway. No showboating! With great luck, I found this dinosaur/ dragon/monster suit for him on a particularly good thrifting day this week. He was giddy and couldn't wait to get to the full length mirror to admire his ferociousness. Now he gets more bang for his buck when he tries to scare us because he just knows he is terrifying in the costume.

And he is drawing monsters now. I couldn't possibly be more proud. I have been waiting for this milestone rather impatiently. I LOVE little kid drawings of themselves and the way they see the world. It is just too precious and hilarious.

TASTY LITTLE SIDENOTE, ANYONE? I used to babysit for this family we will call the Whites. Little Boy White's friend, whose family incidentally would later become one of my all-time favorite families to sit for, was mauled by a dog at a birthday party. Bigtime. His face was ripped off and over 200 stitches were required to reattach his nose and forehead. Really bigtime. Anyway, the kid I was watching wanted to make a get well card for his buddy and drew this horrendous picture complete with a bubble-bodied dog with large fangs drenched in blood hovering over a sobbing child covered in tears and blood with the word "Sorry!" canopied above it all in little kid script across the top. It was so rad. I intercepted it before delivery could be made, though. I didn't want to be the person responsible for any flashbacks. Little Boy White's parents were pleased with my decision, and later told me they had put the drawing in their son's babybook.

Anyhow....on Christmas, Angus started drawing people. Well, preschool renderings of people and robots---the kind with a circley body/face hybrid and stilt-like limbs. And now he has started drawing monsters.

He was just born cool, folks. There's just no denying it.

10 Things

A while back, I was tagged by Nancy with the task of creating a list of ten things one might not know about me. It takes some doing to rustle up alone time around here, but this is what I have come up with so far.

1. As is the case with most control freaks, I am highly uncomfortable being the passenger in moving vehicles. I toe the line between sanity and panic attacks by back-seat driving alongside the poor soul lucky enough to be chauffeuring me. There are very few exceptions to this. Morgan is one of them. She drives fast, but she drives well. I am another exception. I am okay when I am the driver.

2. I am a super fast reader and can read upside down (the page turned upside down, not me turned upside down) just as fast as I can read right side up. The only person I know who can probably read faster is Sherrie.

3. I secretly feel guilty that I brought two perfect children into such a broken world.

4. Tony calls me Deputy Dog and thinks I should go apply for a job as a police dog because my sense of smell is so overactive that I can smell things most other people can't. This is not a good skill to have. I really wish it was keen sight instead, but who gets to choose these things?

5. Cats kind of scare me.

6. Ever since Angus' second serious asthma attack, the one where he was actually diagnosed, I monitor his breathing at least four times each day, every day. I do this in the morning, at nap time, after nap, before bath, and before bed. I watch for signs of tugging for air, for signs of his stomach puffing in and out. I listen for wheezing. Does the meat between his ribs show with each inhalation? Does the space on his throat between his collarbones suck in when he takes a breath? It's tiresome and I feel like Shirley Maclaine in Terms of Endearment, but when you have seen the thing you love most in the world with blue lips and flaring nostrils and pale skin, crying and gasping for air you vow to never allow it to happen again. And you make sure that no backwoods dumbshit of a doctor ever turns you away without giving your baby proper care again.

7. A very superstitious girl am I. I knock on wood. I don't step on cracks. I take care of business when salt is spilled and all the other ones, too. I hate it when someone tells me a new superstition because then I feel I have to follow that one, too. For instance, someone told me last year that you should never tell anyone about a nightmare before breakfast or it will come true. Check.

8. I've pretty much always been the funny friend of the cuter girl. I like that role. And it used to throw me off when I would befriend someone funnier than myself, since my role would then be all out of whack. Frances and Sherrie and Morgan are all good examples of this. Not only are they the prettier girl, but the funnier one, too. Note to any men out there: combos are the way to go, fellas. A pretty girl who makes you laugh is a keeper for sure.

9. I hate eating shrimp because the texture feels biting off a finger at the knuckle. (This shrimp texture description was coined perfectly by a girl I once knew. Thanks again for sharing, Deborah!)

10. I honestly expect to stay married to Tony till I am old and wrinkled.

So here's the deal. I have no idea who reads this outside of my family and a few close friends. So, if you are reading this and you have a blog, you should consider yourself tagged and do a 10 Things List, too. If you do one, leave me a note so I can check it out. I'd like to get to know you better, every last one of you.

Happy New Year

Then and Now

So much change in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Goodbye, 2007.

Angus and His "Motorcycle"

o tannenbaum

All the Loans Are Paying Off.

Well, not really. Not yet. But as least I know ye olde gray matter has not yet gone to mush.

Get a Cash Advance

Santa Visit 2007

Breaking away from his traditional tearful Scream/Wail/Maul Santa Visit Routine this year, Angus embraced the experience. He talked Santa's ear off, asked him for a motorcycle, and even sang a round of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with the Man in Red. My little boy is growing up....sniff sniff. Noah, on the other hand, was definatley not into letting Santa touch him, so he did not participate this year. Yet. I am going to try again this week. He will be in a photo with Santa, even if it means that we have to merely dangle him into frame. It is important to me, even if it is mildly and temporarily traumatizing for him. I need to scan in the actual "paid for" photo, which is actually in focus. Here are the ones I snapped.

Frosty The Snowman

Santa's On His Way

One week and counting......

Etsy for Everyone

I love Etsy.com and can waste hours browsing around, drafting Wish Lists of handmade lovliness. I hunt around Etsy the way I did when Ebay was young and exciting....just clicking around on a virtual thrifting extravaganza. Lots of looking and almost never buying. But Etsy is way cooler than Ebay ever was because it is only handmade goodness. You can find anything from Robots made of old cameras to sewing and clothing/accessories and random art. Beautiful prints on the cheap cheap. My friend Noelle's stuff rules. So go and check out Etsy. Buy something homemade. Buy something free of Chinese lead paint this Christmas.

with pathetic tree, ornament and blanket!

I found the World's Greatest Christmas Decoration last night. I think it will end up being the one that the kids really look forward to seeing year after year. (And P.S. Charlie Brown: I'd have never gone so far as to call your choice of tree pathetic, but I guess if the shoe fits.....)

Virginian November

77 degrees and sunny on the day before Thanksgiving is something to be thankful for, indeed. So I took my kids and our friend Salt Lake Jake to a park so we could store up Vitamin D and some warm sunshiney memories to help keep our spirits warm in the coming winter. The kids ran around like maniacs and were filthy and exhausted by the time we headed home. Angus is in full blown hero worship mode over Jake now. I don't blame him either. Jake's funny and sweet and kind and patient and genuinely likes to be with the boys. Noah is way into him, too. You did good, Salt Lake Amy. Your boy is a winner in the game of Life.

Last September

Last night, our friend Steve just gave us a disk containing some pictures taken last year, just one month before Noah popped into the world. I really can't remember where we were when these were taken. And even better, I have almost forgotten what it felt like to be that uncomfortably pregnant. Almost......

Fall

Shorter days mean that the boys need to work harder to achieve maximum giddiness before sundown.

Dancy Pants

Noah rarely passes on the opportunity to dance. What kind of music he hears is not important. It could be carnival music, a bass-heavy car stereo rolling past the house, or just someone whistling. All he knows is, he's got to move. He's got quite a variety of dances in the old repertoire now. What each of his dance moves have in common are (a) deep knee bends, (b) one arm doing the majority of the work, and (c) a look of total concentration on his face while he grooves. Here is a bit of a peek at what I'm referring to. This kid rules.

do good

Hat Weather Arrived

skybaby

i swiped this from the webiste which was set up to honor the memory of, and memories created by and with, our friend patrick. ladies and gentlemen, i give you “skybaby.” jeff gay submitted this classic. it is taken directly from a letter patrick once wrote to him.

enjoy.


"Once when i was younger like 12 or something I was a jr. counselor at this soccer camp in Massachusetts and I was standing out in this field jumping up and down on this piece of wood that was laying across this big log like a teeter totter. I was standing with my back to the wood which made a cool sound when I jumped backwards on it like “dannanannannna” and I was zoning out, staring out at the field. Suddenly I saw a child falling from the sky. I couldn’t believe it. It was a 3 year old falling from like 50 feet up and it landed directly in front of me. I ran over to it and it was fine. It just looked up at me a little dazed. I looked up in the sky and there were no planes or trees or anything the kid could have fallen from. I was truly amazed. I heard screaming from the parking lot and a woman, the kid’s mom i guess, was running and screaming towards us. She pushed me aside and grabbed the skybaby. The kid started crying like crazy and the mother was screaming at me. Apparently I had launched her child when it crawled away from her over onto the wood i was jumping on. I felt a little disappointed as she walked away. It was my first encounter with something totally mysterious and within moments it was taken away from me. Even though the kid was fine I was still fired from my position as jr. counselor at the soccer camp. I don’t think i cared as much about losing the job as I did about losing the mystery of the skybaby. "