Life down here on earth

My kids went to vacation bible school and all they got were these creepy masks

Actually, that's not strictly true. My house is overflowing with summer craft projects, not just from vacation bible school. We have scary masks and painted grass mats, boxes decorated with stickers and glitter glue, concrete stepping stones, tissue paper torches, rainsticks made from paper towel tubes, construction paper wind socks and the list goes on. If school doesn't start soon, I may drown in Elmer's glue.

Anyway, don't you think those masks are a little creepy for vacation bible school? When I walked in to pick up Jack and Sam this other kid ran up to the woman next to me wearing a mask covered in red paint. It was very unnerving. I suppose Jack's looks like a football fan wearing a feather hat, but Sam's has a strange monkey-like quality to it. It's the same sortof look that made me, as a child, afraid of the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, he loves it and he's been wearing it for hours every day all week.

Except for today. Today he was sick and looked like this.

Doesn't he look pouty and demanding? He was sick enough to demand constant snuggles, but not so sick that he would just fall asleep in the chair and leave me alone. I'm torn between hoping he feels better tomorrow and hoping he feels bad enough not to wear that mask again.

L, M, N, O, Pee!

The other day while I prepared dinner Sam was wandering around my elbow saying, "Pee."

He said it about four times before I asked him, "Do you have to pee?"

"No," he said, "P. It's a letter." and he snickered. "P."

"You think that's funny, don't you?"

He giggled, "Yeah! And it's a bathroom word! Pee!"

He's been really into bathroom talk a lot lately, as is pretty normal for a four year old boy. I told him that he could say all the "potty" words he wanted as long as he was in the bathroom. And so, in proper pushing-the-limits-style, he will stand inside the bathroom next to the kitchen, open the door and yell, "Buttbuttbuttbootybootypenispenispenistushytushypeepeepee!" He hasn't yet grasped how it's okay to say any of those words outside the bathroom if it's needed in the course of conversation, but it's not okay to say them to make your brother laugh at the dinner table.

Let's hope he works out the finer distinctions soon.

Maybe he ate too much lobster

Ugh.

Sam just woke up sick. Like, really sick. He woke up *after* he had thrown up in his bed and all over himself enough to warrant a bath. He didn't like being so rudely awakened and plucked from his bed and thrown into the bathtub. He screamed because the water was too cold and then screamed because it was too hot. It's a wonder Jack slept through it all.

I put him in some clean p.j.s and he curled up on the floor and fell asleep while I made his bed. Poor thing. I hope this is the last of it. At the very least because it already means two extra loads of laundry. I also hope it's not contagious because he gave me half of his cookie this afternoon and I ate it.

I had arrangements to meet a friend for coffee in the morning and we were meeting other friends at the pool in the afternoon. Most likely those plans will have to be scrapped. 

This isn't the wallpaper you're looking for. Move along.

I'm thinking of putting some wallpaper in my downstairs bathroom. I was looking at a wallpaper book and the "designer" was helping.  We were looking at graphic patterns with lots of circles and waves and things. I stopped at one with large circles filled with a crosshatch pattern.

Me:  Ooh. Look at this.

Me: You know what this reminds me of? The Death Star.

Her: ...

Me: You know, from Star Wars?

Her: ...

Me: *gestures with hands* Luke Skywalker swoops in and destroys it?

Her: Um, yes, well, you don't want a "Death Star" in your powder room, do you? *flips page*

Me: *shrugs* Maybe. Maybe not.

Are you ready for some football?

Jack started football this week. Man, there are like a million kids playing football, too. There must be at least 80 kids in the 7-8 year old group alone.  Practice is two hours a night, four nights a week until school starts on August 15.

This is the first week so they've got them out doing drills and such so they can divide up the teams by size and ability. The coaches are just what you'd think they'd be. Big guys with ball caps and sunglasses. Most of them are good ol' boys with beer bellies and accents, "Ah want yew to git fahred up!"

At the end of practice the kids show their spirit by shouting, "ONE TEAM, ONE DREAM! ONE DREAM, ONE TEAM!" It's a far cry from swim team in So. California, where they had cute hip-hop dance-type team cheers ("Aint no party like a Bluefins party!"). It's so like football to have a huge sense of self-importance. Sortof makes me homesick for Texas. I think I might have to go watch Varsity Blues.

Troll! In the Travel Section!

The real story of the day is that the new Harry Potter book comes out tonight. Well, tomorrow at 12:01am.  I'm not ashamed only slightly ashamed to admit that I will be at the Cool Springs Barnes and Noble waiting with all the other geeks for my pre-ordered copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. 

One of the friends who is going with me to B&N plans to go in costume. She's going to dress as Bellatrix LeStrange, probably because you don't get too many chances to wear a corset and be evil in public. (If you don't know Bellatrix, you need to read the books. Go now to Amazon.com!) Fortunately, I don't own anything remotely resembling a costume, but if I did, I would dress as Darth Vader and try to convince people they're in the wrong place. Heh.

So, anyway, don't be calling me tomorrow. I'll be holed up with a (hopefully) good book and I promise not to spill the beans on who the Half Blood Prince is until you read it.

I'm going to smack him

I have spent my week doing exciting things like attending a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party with two kids wired on cake and tokens, waiting in line for nearly 2 hours for football registration, meeting with the builder about things that are wrong with our house (which are exactly the same as all the things that were wrong the *last* time I met with the guy) , and waiting for the microwave repairman.

The latter, by the way, just left, leaving my microwave and oven unit hanging out of the wall. He says he "should be back later this afternoon" with help so that he can "pull the unit all the way out to get at the back." Honestly, I think he doesn't know what he's doing because he was here for an hour, all the while talking on his cellphone headset saying things like, "Well, I don't know, the white wire goes into this ceramic thingy..." Looks like we're eating takeout this weekend.

So, while my week has been full of fun and adventure, Greg has been out of town. Chicago and Dallas, I think, but I never pay that much attention. I know that traveling around the country is a real chore and all those dinners out at fancy restaurants must be torture. Last night he wandered in late after flying back home yesterday afternoon and then attending a business dinner.  And what he said to me was,

"If I have to eat crab, lobster or filet mignon one more time I think I'll throw up."

Poor baby.

Ouch!

There is a park in our subdivision. It's small, but quaint and sits about 100 yards off the road, down a hill and behind some trees so it can't be seen from the road. There is an asphalt path from the street down to the park. Recently, the people in the house that sits next to the path acquired a Rodesian Ridgeback. It's a beautiful dog. The path to the park runs all along one side the dog's yard. This poor thing spends his days running up and down along the fence barking at all the people going to and from the park. It seems like torture for a dog. It's also very annoying for the people.

At the top, where the front corner of the dog's yard meets the path, the homeowner's irrigation must be over-watering. There is a big mud pit where the dog turns around at the corner and there is mud splashed all over the wrought iron fence. There is also a wet spot on the path where the water runs across it. This spot gets shade, too, so a three foot long section of the path is green and slimy. Today, on our way down the path, Jack rode ahead. I was walking Sam's bike because the path is too steep for him and he was walking next to me. We were making our way carefully through the slick spot, trying to ignore the barking, when simultaneously, like synchronized falling, our legs flew out in front of us and we landed hard on our respective rear ends. We weren't holding hands; we weren't even touching. We just both fell at exactly the same time. The bike careened off down the path and into the brush. The dog continued to bark.

We got to our feet and Sam cried, while I tried not to. Sam kept saying that falling in the muck "made him very sad" while I pulled the bike out of the brush. The dog continued to bark. We walked the rest of the way down the path to the park, but didn't feel much like playing anymore. After some half-hearted swinging and a snack, we headed home.

I pushed Sam's bike back up the path (still too steep for him) and muttered under my breath at the dog who started running and barking as soon as he saw us. As Sam pedaled home, I walked behind him, slowly, waving at neighbors as they drove past and hoping they didn't notice my stiff gait and all the muck on my behind.

Fireworks of Doom

Our house is at the top of a hill, so we ended up being able to see quite a few fireworks last night, as it turned out. We had good views of 3 different shows. Another show was very close, but there are so many trees around here we couldn't see it. We could hear it, though, and all the low rumbling booms made me think of the drums of Moria. I said so to Greg and he said, "You know the neighbors are over there on their balcony. They can hear you." If he's trying to keep our geekiness on the down-low, I think he's wasting his time. You can't hide that sort of thing. 

Sam declared the fireworks, "Big Fireworks of DOOM!"  and in all, we decided that sitting on your own front porch was way better than braving "intense" traffic.

Jack and Sam are playing upstairs and I can hear Jack singing, "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!" I hope his good mood holds because we are about to embark on one of the most dreaded missions of summer: grocery shopping with two kids in tow. I've put it off for so long that our situation has become dire. I had peanut butter on a spoon for breakfast. Which isn't all that bad, in my opinion, but the kids are tired of subsisting on peanut butter and popcorn, so off we go.

I am well-prepared with a good list. Here's hoping I can minimize all the extras that find their way into the cart whenever I have "help."

Hey, Baby, it's the fourth of July

It's sortof a sad day. Jack was all excited that it was the fourth of July and then disappointed that we weren't spending the day swimming with his cousins and coming home to a rockin' neighborhood party. That's what we've done the last four years, after all.

We're not going to see any fireworks shows. We've never been with the kids. We always had a pyromaniac festival right in front our house as our block party drew to a close and all our drunk neighbors set their teenagers loose with illegal fireworks. Exciting and scary in a way that a regular-old fireworks show just never is.

We decided not to go to the local show because every mention of it in the paper says the traffic is "intense" and we don't know exactly where to go or where to park and frankly, we don't want to see it that bad. :) We're on a big hill, so we're wondering if we'll see anything from here. Hey, my redneck neighbors drive their ATVs in the neighborhood, maybe they'll come up with something illegal and scary.

I'm thinking of planning a neighborhood party next year. Or maybe I'll just rent a bounce house and make margaritas and there can be an impromptu party. Or maybe I'll just make margaritas and call it a night.