recent notes

very briefly, the past 5 weekends have included the following:
William's spring show at his school
my sweet Grammy's funeral
my cousin's wedding in Denver
a family dinner/get-together in Arlington
another cousin's wedding in Fort Worth
a weekend in Arlington with Mike's family from Tennessee
and this weekend, we are having a garage sale!
ok, breathe. more details on all this stuff later. I know I need to do major catch-up on all our recent happenings.

In the meantime, I would like to briefly share a few things I have noticed lately:

1. there is nothing, and I mean NUH-THING, like a sunburn to turn everyone you meet into Mr./Ms. Obvious. For example, I readily admit to some poor decision-making concerning the application of sunscreen this past weekend while at the pool. I got a sunburn. I got a sunburn bad. I know this. It is not really something you can ignore when even carrying a purse on your shoulder is painful. Nevertheless (by the way, I LOVE the word "nevertheless"), these are some of the actual comments I have received this week at work:

"Looks like someone got some sun!"
"Oh my gosh, does it hurt?"

and my personal favorite...
"You are sooooo sunburned!"
I really, really wanted to say, "Is THAT what that is? Thank you so much!" But I didn't. 'Cause I'm nice like that.

2. What is it about a preggers girl that causes all around her to loose any respect they might have for the aforementioned (another favorite word) preggers girl's personal space?
I literally did a Karate Kid-style "wax-on, wax-off" move to block a lady's hand as she reached out to touch my belly. It was totally instinctive - I didn't even know what I was doing until I had done it.

So, I plan on starting an official Mr. Miyagi-inspired training course for all preggers girls out there to ward off uninvited belly touches. Really, any of the moves would work: wax on/wax off, paint the fence, and sand the deck.


More to come, especially some pictures :)

One last note: my belly is already huge (at least it feels that way!). My hip joints and hamstrings ache all the time from the sudden appearance of a beach ball on my front! But that is exactly the way I want to be!! All I really care about is that we get a full term, big, fat baby :)

visit with Cooper and Wendy

Last weekend, we got to visit my good friend Wendy and her son Cooper in Arlington. Our boys are less than a month apart so it is always fun when we can get together!
Will has been super-shy lately so it took him a COUPLE OF HOURS to warm-up, but once he did, it was on!! The boys had a great time and it was so good to see Wendy and her family. I am sad I don't get to see them more often!

let's back up a bit: here is a picture of the sweet boys just a few weeks after Will was born - around Christmas '06


here are a couple of pics from when we got together last summer:


check out these two pictures, the first from last summer and the second one from last weekend.... I can't believe how much they have grown!!!

(I just LOVE Cooper's curls!)


finally, a chair shot:


and the big finale on the piano:

goooooo Rangers! (and happy birthday Mike!)

famous last words:
"Honey, let's take Will to the Ranger game as a belated birthday celebration for you!! It will be so much fun!!"

(in retrospect, a Ranger game with a 2-year old LOOKS really cute, but is a completely exhausting, non-relaxing experience!)

this is William, not watching the game:


here is William, again, not watching the game:


and here are my boys:


We went, we ate, we made some pictures! Love the Ballpark! The only thing Will really remembers was the Dot Race and how the dots were running and then they went back to their house - go figure!

And we got to sit with our friends, James and Kelsey, and their sweet baby Jacob!

a little funny for the weekend...

.. not everyone will find this humorous, But I laughed out loud... a lot!!!

Dallas Blooms

this is embarrassingly late, but we went to the Dallas Arboretum last month and had a wonderful time! It was a gorgeous day and Will REALLY enjoyed the coy pond and the reflecting pool (not quite so meditative when you've got a two year old splashing in it!)
















crawling... just 'cause he can...




and my personal favorite:

let's discuss... self-checkout at the grocery store

I needed literally only four things from the grocery store on the way home this afternoon. I even had Will help me remember the list (his part was noodles). quick in, quick out, no problem.

fast-forward to self-checkout: If you are 80 years old and the teenager who stands there and monitors self-checkout is really having to scan all your groceries and put them in sacks for you, it is NOT self check-out. that is exactly the OPPOSITE situation for self-checkout. in fact, you are the poster child for a good ol' regular checkout line.

normally, that wouldn't bother me, but just wait...

one of the aforementioned items to get was cheese - the little snack-things for Will's lunches. and of course, this particular grocery store (Kroger!) did not carry them in the neat little packaged bag, so I had to buy 10 individual mini-cheeses (and just in case you are wondering, the 10 mini cheeses did NOT put me over the 15 item limit).

William was in fine form (all over the place) and was standing next to me, because of course, when you are in for a quick trip, he can just hold your hand and walk alongside you, right? a great plan until it comes time to self-checkout and you need both hands. the stupid machine kept telling me to put items back in the bag, take items out, re-scan, etc. because SOMEONE'S hands were banging all over the apparently super-sensitive weighted platform that the sacks are on.

again, normally not a problem, except that the melancholy teenager who usually pushes a button to get the whole thing rolling again is scanning/sacking the groceries of the 80 year old lady in SELF CHECK-OUT who is, by the way, WAAAAAY over the 15 item limit.
eventually, I call over to him, "can you please push whatever button you need to so the machine will keep scanning?"

he looks over at me (us) and says in his most knowledgeable, dignified, I-am-under-the-age-of-20-so-I-am-infinitely-cooler-than-you voice, "it's his hands, ma'am", looking directly at William.

it took every ounce of self-control to refrain from, "really? you think?!?!" along with a few other expletives. but instead I chose this fine phrase: "yeah, I know. he's two. can you just please push the button?"

and he did.

lessons learned:
1. don't try and buy mini-cheese at Kroger
2. scope out the scene at self-checkout before starting the whole process
3. volunteer to let William accompany (for a whole day) any teenager who works at a grocery store in order to provide mother-of-toddler sensitivity training

a comeback, but not for real....

So, I sit here at 11:25 pm, really needing to go to bed, but I had to write this out.

This little bloggy-thingy is definitely a reflection of my current mood/temperament/fatigue level, whatever those might be.

Well tonight, I may have reached a new low.
I was needing to put a few groceries in the fridge and realized that a few things must come OUT of the fridge before the new things could go in. (For some reason, we accumulate leftovers.)

Preface: I gave up years ago on real plastic storage containers. Anything we have now is the disposable, Gladware stuff.

Y'all, I just threw the old stuff away. in the containers. at this point, it is worth my $3.00 to NOT clean out old gross food.

at least my tombstone can say, "she was keepin' it real"

respectfully yours,