And it's only 7:30...

Landon didn't go to sleep last night until just after midnight.

I penned him upstairs and went to lay down in the guest bed.

He thought of playing legos in the dark.

He drug me out of bed.

When I told him he was welcome to play with the legos, but that I was going to lay down, he brought the legos to the bed.

When I wouldn't let him put the legos in the bed, he sat in the dark beside the bed playing with them for 5 minutes or so.

Then he decided to get in the bed and kick me for the next 2 hours.

And big surprise, he was totally not ready to wake up this morning.

And neither was I.

I actually made an effort to take some pictures this morning, and I don't have the stupid cable to get them off my camera.

I predict work will be awfully brutal today, so here's hoping that 5pm comes really fast.

Monkey Bizness

This is a rough week at work. A 3 day week and I have a 700+ page report to put together by 9 am tomorrow. So I'm taking the easy way out with zoo pictures again.

Cookin'

What else is a holiday for?

On Friday I tried The Pioneer Woman's Pineapple Skewered Shrimp. I actually, also marinated some chicken the same way and the chicken was better than the shrimp to me.

On Saturday, Clinton tried quiche again, only to discover that he does actually like it, despite his many years of protests. La Madeleine, here we come.

And then yesterday we had a small BBQ, for which I made this cobbler. Except, I made it in 2 pans. And I didn't have pineapple in the cherry one, and I made a black berry one for the other half.

We also smoked some ribs and chicken quarters and sausage. And invited a few people over. And then I took absolutely no pictures.

Landon got to play in the pool for a few hours with some kids who were a little older (3 and 5 1/2). They taught him a little trick of going over the wall between the hot tub and the pool. He practiced it a lot. I'm sure we'll be seeing it for the rest of the summer.

I think I screwed up

I have a Girl Scout Troop of 8 girls. They just completed their Junior level and will be Cadettes next year. As such they are supposed to be more in charge of what's going on in the troop.

So I let them plan the trip they are taking this summer. I provided them with a worksheet to fill out so they would be able to more easily make the necessary decisions for the trip. Basically they needed to decide on what they were going to eat and what they were going to do on the trip.

When I made my suggestion sheet - the one where I came up with a bunch of ideas and gave them a list so they could see some and possibly come up with their own...there weren't enough things on the list of activities. And something inside me said they needed more. So I added "Mystery Activity." That would be an activity which they would not know the plan, and I would come up with something...I didn't think they'd choose it.

They did.

And now I can't think of anything beyond my original list. So we're going to be up at my parents' lake house. Pretty naturey, but also with access to a real live house, running water, electricity, etc. These are the things they chose (they totally vetoed the making homemade ice cream, but they have no idea what they're missing):

Swimming
Hiking
Campfire and S’mores
Row boat
Using a Compass Game
Board Games

So, I need ideas. If you were a scout, or in Awana, or in a church group or an Indian princess, or just plain have a fun childhood memory that I might be able to use for my "mystery activity," I need to hear it. (These are 10-11 year old girls, none of them are particularly prissy, but I don't have a fishing license and I have no desire to put worms on hooks or take fish off hooks, so don't even go there.)

On Providing Weapons to Toddlers

Having seen most of the animals, and being terribly upset about leaving the carousel, the only thing we could top it off with was real live animals to touch. So off to the petting zoo, we went.

Upon entering the cage, he decided that he must brush every goat. He didn't have to brush them well, but it was clear that the goal was to touch each and every goat.


Did you know that the Houston zoo will provide your toddler with a weapon?

They are conveniently located in a little basket just inside the gate to the petting zoo.

Sure, they're disguised as brushes. But they're weapons. The goats know it, and I know it.

It's hard enough to chase your toddler around to try to get a good picture of him petting a goat, but to have to chase him as he chases a goat, who is running because he's wielding that weapon, makes it just that much harder. Possibly an Olympic event. Not to mention the 30 other kids who have no idea that they might be in the way of the perfect shot.

I'd say half the goats were hanging out in the "no people zone." Just to avoid the weaponry. Not that that helped, because some people can't read. And surprisingly some of their parents couldn't either, and I suppose they were not technically "in" the "no people" zone, but I don't think they meant for you to be hanging over the rope trying to get at the animals who only need a break. For the love of Pete!



Anyway, we brushed all the goats who would allow it. And we were nearing nap time, and knew that beast of all beasts was about to show his face. It was shortly after leaving the goat pen, that we headed out to the parking lot. It was a good day. It was such good weather. It appears that the train in Hermann park is not running - they look like they're building some kind of fancy train station. To be complete in March of 2009. So next year, we'll also ride the train.

Round and Round

After we had seen most of the animals that we thought he would recognize, we found ourselves right smack dab in the Children's area of the zoo. The next obvious choice was the carousel. So We went and stood by it for a few minutes and watched people ride.

He seemed genuinely interested in it.

So we bought the ticket.

And I prepared for a not so silent freak out.

Clinton was positioned so that we needed an outside animal in order for him to get good pictures.


Landon gripped the pole with white knuckle strength.

He rode face forward for the first several rounds.

And as soon as Clinton put the camera up. He smiled in his general direction. Punk.

Animals...they're not just for your toy ark anymore

We took Landon to the zoo on Saturday. And it blew his little mind!

The weather was perfect, it was cool, there was a breeze. We started by looking at some meercats, and from there went to the cheetahs - the sign said something about maned dogs...but they looked like cheetahs. At which point Landon was all. "What the heck is going on here?"

Next up were the giraffes. Which he didn't quite recognize from anything we have at home.

But then, he spotted the elephants.

It was bear day. And they only had like 2 bears. One of whom was sitting up against a tree like a human in a bear suit.

And there was this lion, who was totally up for everyone to get a close up.

He survived the whole thing with minimal fits. When we could tell we weren't going to be able to control his fits anymore with bribes of new things to see, we headed back to the car.

He stopped to talk to the koi.

And we caught the sea lions on the way out.

When Joshua was this size we took him to the zoo, and he was totally only interested in the pigeons. We couldn't even hardly get him to glance in the general direction of the elephants. So I had very little hope for this adventure, but it went much better than expected. Stay tuned this week for goat petting adventures in the petting zoo and lion riding on the carousel.

**A special bonus I did not expect was that the bathroom stalls each had a picture of the front of an animal on the door. And when you sat down, you were looking at that animals behind!

Freaky Friday

Last night after dinner, we stripped Landon down to his diaper and socks. As usual. He refused to put on jammies. As usual. He disappeared from the kitchen for a minute or so. As usual. And when he returned, he demanded that we put on his water shoes. The pair that is still too big for him. Over his socks. We tried to explain the fashion faux pas he was trying to commit, but he just wasn't hearing it.

I mailed off my inspector application. Plan # 5697 Is moving forward.

Censorship

There are a lot of things I don't write about on this blog. And about 95% of the things that happened this week fall into that category. I'm sorry about that. As a reward, I'll be posting tomorrow morning. I had a Dr. Appointment on Tuesday, I have a team building thing on Friday at lunch, so I'm going to come in on Friday morning to make up the hours from Tuesday. So you'll get an extra post this week, even if it's just a picture.

Landon finished his antibiotic yesterday morning and tomorrow morning I'll finish mine. We're both well on the way to recovery. FINALLY.

Question for you northern living type people. On TV, This Old House, HGTV kind of TV, I have seen them use this plastic sheeting stuff on their windows in the winter, to apply you tape it to the edge of the window then you blow dry it and it shrinks. It's supposed to help insulate against the cold. Here's an example of a product:

And I was thinking, since we have those diamond leaded glass windows and they have like 10,000 holes in them, if I used that stuff on our windows, we might be able to save money by not airconditioning the entire front yard. And my question is this: 1) can you see out of the window after it's applied? and 2) does it work?

Wordless Wednesday

Mother's Day Cards

We sent out mother's day cards to our mothers and grandmothers.



We had him sign them like this:

He's all about symmetry, so when his one hand produced a print, he tried to make the other produce a print.

But it wouldn't.

He finally gave up and just admired his pink hand.

His pink hand, which took another good 4 or 5 hours, multiple wipes, hand washings, and a shower to finally fade.

He wears his sunglasses at night

He wore his sunglasses all weekend.


Even while moving his cake pans from the cabinet to the window sill and back.

How does your air conditioner just know that you got your IRS rebate check? On the bright side, without actually FIXING it, and with just a recharge of freon, it's working better than it has since we moved in.


Landon went back to Linda's this morning for the first time since April 1st. And judging from the Birthday party over there on Saturday? They're going be having a lot of "discussions" today. About sharing. About being nice in general. He wasn't very interested in going in this morning, until Linda reminded him about how they have cereal there. And then it was "Mom who?" He'll be fine.

85%

I went home Tuesday from work in the middle of the day.

I did not go to work yesterday.

I watched entirely too much TV.

I am back.

At 85%.

But at least I think I'll live.

Signs, Signs, everywhere are signs

Don't even get me started on this one.

This one warms my heart. I am a sucker for a good pun.

And finally, a sign that the apocolypse is near...my sinus cavity has now fallen prey to the bug that has crippled our house for the past month. All it took was one stinkin' night in the same bed with Clint...breathing on me. GAH.

Monthly Newsletter #19

Dear Landon,

This is a little late in coming this month because when I sat down to write this last week, it looked a lot like this:

Dear Landon,

You’ve been sick for almost a month now. Stop
it.

Love,
Mama

And since that didn’t seem to be in the spirit of these letters, I decided to let it ride a few days and see if I could come up with something better. This is not much better, but here it goes.

This month you have begun to kind of half ass attempt at communicating with us. You’ve had so much diarrhea that it makes your butt hurt so bad, that you’ve finally decided to tell us when you poop. Which is a blessing. Except when it’s 4 times in a 10 minute span. Then it’s not so much a blessing as much as we wish you could recognize the end of it and then tell us. However, while I went to Walgreens to pick up some pedialyte you did tell your father that you needed the vapor rub stuff on your feet. And then socks. And what about jammies? You’re like a little adult with the parenting of yourself.

You’re starting to whack the dogs a little harder than I think you should, so we’ll be working harder on being nice to them in the first place instead of whacking them and then, oh yeah, I’m supposed to be nice, and hugging them.

This has been the month of the pool for you. It’s finally warm enough to get in. And we’ve taken a chance a few times and gotten in despite the illness. Most of the time it worked out for us. MOST of the time.

Oh yeah, don’t drink and drive.

Love,
Mama

P.S. No, seriously. Get to feeling better.

Do you recognize this?

So, Clint has been sick this week, and so has Landon. And as I seemed to have some extra time on my hands. And as I am wont to do in situations like this, I try to accomplish something, anything, for the love of god! Last time, I installed the baby-proof latches on the cabinets. This time I decided it was time to tackle the office.

Now, I have a system. It's probably not the best system but it should work. Theoretically. Each year I make file folders for each of our monthly bills. Ideally as the bills come in and I pay them, then file them in the appropriate folder and at the end of the year I lift the entire file drawer into a drag-up box, mark it with the year - place the income tax return at the back of the box and I have our financial business filed away in handy dandy little boxes should I need anything at a later date. (I do move legal documents from one year to the next as needed...like current voter registrations and whatnot.)

And then Landon was born.

And my whole system went to crap. Ok, let's be honest, I have never been good at keeping up with this, I tend to let things pile up for a few months and THEN file it away. And every time I do that, I think "This time, I'll actually file things as I pay them." And each time I FAIL miserably. I have given up on the idea that I would have them in order in the file - because it's like 12 pieces of paper, if I need a specific month, I can find it pretty quickly.

But this time? This time it's been like 9 months. Or at least, that's my estimate based on the dates of some of the things I filed. And somewhere along the way a large piece of furniture disappeared beneath the rubble.

And I was using laundry baskets to contain bills. That's basketS. Plural. That's how bad I had let it get.

I spent a total of about 5 hours on it - some on Sunday, some on Monday. First sorting and removing trash (no need to file envelopes and ads.) Then filing everything in the appropriate folders. Then making new folders for this year. Then going back and moving this year's stuff to new folders and flattening paper (folded paper takes up more room, and I just don't have the space.)

But yesterday. In the office. I found this magnificent piece of furniture.

It dates back to 2004, I believe. I wasn't sure exactly what it was at first, I hadn't seen it in so long, but then memories started flooding in. Hopefully it will be a useful piece of furniture, now that it can breathe.

Next illness? I tackle my sewing/crafty closet.

Fiona has her doubts that I'll ever get it straightened out.