IT’S DONE!! IT’S DONE!!  IT’S DONE!!

I cannot wait to see it on him.  If I had been paid minimum wage for the hours I worked on this thing, it would be selling for about $300 bucks!  I just finished gluing the spots on the hood and sewing on the ears.  Procrastinate much?  A couple jokes came out of the whole process.  Scott came home yesterday to this (minus the spots on the hood):

He was like “Um, honey?  Do you just not like the bear?”  I replied, “Well it wasn’t like I could put a plastic bag over the kid’s head to glue spots on.”

This should give you some idea why you haven’t heard from me in several days.  And that’s just a small percentage.

Caleb and I picked out a red collar at Walmart the other day.  Yes, right out of the pet section.  And yes I did get a few strange looks trying collars on my toddler.  Scott said, “Are you gonna get him a leash too?”  Um.  Yeah.  I can see that now.

“Hello, child services?  Yeah these people just showed up at my door trick or treating.  I know the kid was dog and everything, but I think they took it a little too far.  Do you consider a leash and collar around his neck endangerment?”

That would go over well I’m sure.  So that’s a negative on the leash.

Caleb also just so happened to get this patriotic necklace from the children’s museum a few months ago.  It has a plastic disc on it that can be opened up so that you can draw on the paper inside.  It was on a red white and blue ribbon for the fourth.  So I took the disc off the ribbon because it will make the PERFECT tag for his collar!  I am so anxious to put it on him, but I don’t want to risk doing so too early since I literally don’t have time to reglue any spots!  Sorry the pictures have taken so long!  It wouldn’t be made by me if it wasn’t finished at the last possible second.  I did manage to squeeze in four episodes of Will and Grace last night when I should have been finishing it though ;)

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I took a break from the costume making Sunday and Monday, and now I am in the final push.  I’m currently in the process of covering the whole back of the costume with spots (by the way, have I mentioned how many hours I have spent cutting those out?).

How am I keeping Caleb occupied?  Two words.  Moon sand.  He loves that stuff.  We bundled up in several layers today and spent a long time on the screened porch.  Him playing in the sand and me cutting out little black dots, and smiling to myself as I watched someone mow at the house next door (more on that later).  I just realized, since we are having a cold snap with a high of 50 today and 25mph winds, that Caleb doesn’t have a thick winter jacket yet.  He has several light weight ones.  So I put him in a long sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt, a jacket and a hat pulled over his ears with his hood up.  He might not have been able to bend at the elbows, but everything was warm except his hands and nose!

Didn’t I take this picture last year?  I’ve come to the conclusion this hat is never going to fit.

Pictures from the playground last week.  Awful/harsh lighting, but who cares.

Taking a little break

Playin’ in the leaves

Cramming leaves in that poor rocket

What?  Why would you think this is a baby toy?  I’m not to big for it.

Ran into a leaf drift

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Seriously, I think Kmart must have hired some fresh faces in their toddler clothing design department.  I have really been lucking up there lately!  And best of all, they are cheap, cheap cheap!  They had gotten in several Christmas things recently (as well as popped up all their fake trees in a different part of the store).

I just had to get this one, because my friend Amber has said this exact thing about Caleb before.  Seems she should have trademarked it!

There was another cute red hoodie long sleeve tshirt that said “Dear Santa, I can explain…”

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Guess what will be in Caleb’s stocking on Christmas morning?  Rest assured, you will see video!  We might even need to have the paramedics on standby because he is going to FLIP.  I won the five car pack off eBay last night.  You know, then one I said several weeks ago that we’d never get.  Because they go for so much.  Darn collector’s items.  It didn’t go for as much as that auction I previously mentioned, thankfully.  Still too much, but it will all be worth it.  Included are the regular Herbie, the junkyard Herbie, Herbie’s girlfriend, a chrome Herbie, and Trip Murphy’s car.  I cannot wait to see his face.  This will be a hard one to sit on for two months!

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What would Rachel do?

I was pulling a huge old tarp into our storage building.  It has been sitting in the grass for a while, in the spirit of not killing any more grass, I dragged it in there.  No way I was folding it, for all the creatures living underneath.  So as I was trying to shove it into a corner, I see a snake that was drug in with the tarp.  A baby snake.  Probably all of three inches long, and could have been confused with an earthworm had he not been squiggling in a snake pattern quickly trying to get away.  He went under a stroller that is in there.  When I moved the stroller he was coiled up.

So what did I do?

a.) picked it up and tossed it out of the building

b.) left him where he was to make a home in our storage building so that I could find a 10 foot snake next time I entered

c.) brought him inside for a pet

d.) jumped up in the seat of the lawn mower, then balanced one foot on the lawn mower tire and the other on a table and used a rake to gently encourage him to make his way out of the building with intermittent shrieks.  Only to poke at him with a stick a few minutes later.

You tell me.

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It is actually going better than expected.  A white hooded one piece suit would have made my life invariably simpler.  But, it is made none the less.  And it has a strip of velcro on the butt for the tail, as I don’t imagine it would be too comfortable to sit on (every time I do it, my -preposition at the end of a sentence- alarm goes off, I just don’t care enough to reword it.  I’m such a dork).  I just need to make some ears and paws, then finish cutting out and glue all the spots.  You know, nothing much.  You don’t even want to know how many hours I’ve spent on it already.  But it will all be worth it.  I think.  As long as the seams don’t fall apart before next Friday.

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I have no business doing this.  Like, slowly put down the handheld sewing machine (they have those?  I’m pretty sure.) and step away from the fabric.  I’m supposed to be purchasing white attire and gluing on some black dots.  But I have waited so long, I’m afraid ordering online, the items won’t get here.  And it would be very painful for me to spend $40 on a pair of white pants and a hooded sweat shirt.  (But not on a highly coveted Tom Arma costume.  Damnit man!  Where’s the dalmatian one?!)  The kid wants to be a dalmatian, so dalmatian it is.  I already turned a giraffe into a bat, so how hard can this be?  Right?

P.S. I also want to make the treat bag out of felt.  I little brown “paper” bag.  A doggy bag.  Hahaha, get it?  I’m so clever.  And stupid.  It will be like one of those little videos with the word counter.  Ding.  One.  Ding, ding.  Two, three.  #!%*.  How many times will she cuss while making this?  Oh I kid.  Sort of.

White flannel, black felt, new scissors, safety pins (to pin it together and then try it on him without tears), black felt, velcro, a “pattern” – a slightly too small Harley Davidson one piece, and a handheld sewing machine, because I don’t know how to work the ‘68 big lug my mom gave me.  Gotta find something long sleeved to make the sleeves though.

The inspiration

Wish me luck?  I’m gonna need it.

Oh and if by some chance, I actually pull this off…I’ll be on cloud nine.

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I’ve been a busy little bee online Christmas shopping.  Or shall I call it Christmas scouting?  Looking for potential gifts.  Can I just say, I live for this time of the year!  I have a mile long bookmark list called “products” to which I add anything I see that is really cool and I don’t want to forget.  Then there are wishlists everywhere that I add cool toys or games to when I find them.  This first one, I think is super cool.

Check out the Sprig vehicles.  Battery free.  Made of recycled, environmentally friendly materials.  But just because it is battery free doesn’t mean it doesn’t make noise!  When it is rolled, a generator is activated to power up lights, sound, and even stories on the Discover Rig.  Interchangeable drivers from different countries all have a different story to tell.

Remember these?  The cardboard blocks that your dad could stand on?

I love little whimsical things like these.  This Zolo set comes with a spinning board to make a game out of creating crazy creatures.  I love the bright colors and funky looking pieces.

Using Val’s blog terminology, how’s that for a fluff post?   I got nothin.

I guess I could tell you about Old Blue.  My possessed car.  She’s a skippin ‘like a school girl’ as Scott put it.  He changed the spark plug wires (again) yesterday just to make sure we didn’t have a bad wire.  It is suddenly not skipping as bad.  But still skipping none-the-less.  This morning the accelerator got temporarily stuck.  That was fun.  I didn’t hit you!  My car did, I swear!  It is a old Ford.  My dad says that stands for fix or repair daily.  Several weeks ago, I developed a small oil leak.  Mother Earth, please forgive me.  It leaked three quarts in three miles!  Some tiny little sending unit gasket broke and well, we’re just lucky it didn’t lock up the engine.  Scott fixed it, and said, well it really sounds good!  I told him, yeah, til the next thing craps out.  I kid you not, the very next day, the air conditioning died on me.

Other than that, we’re pretty quiet over here.  I considered being snooty (and by snooty, I probably mean childish) to some daycare lady this morning.  We had just arrived at the park, and they brought the kids out to play (it was a church playground, not a park really, I know she was right, but still).  She asked us to leave, but not before trying to recruit us.  She asked how old Caleb was, and when she heard the answer, she said “Well why isn’t he in school?” as if I was breaking some law.  I almost blurted out “because we plan to homeschool” but I instead walked away and left Scott to converse with her.  I know, I know, get prepared, because the older he gets, the more I will hear “why aren’t you at school?”  It was just her tone.  Kind of like the lady sitting on a bench outside the grocery store last night.

“You look tired.”

A polite way of telling me I look like shit.  ”Well you could use a bath yourself.”  Good thing that was in my head.  I just smiled and cursed at her in my head and carried on with my non stop talking kid, my purse, my cloth grocery bags and a toilet slung over my shoulder.  Mental image right?  Looks like I’m moving in to the grocery store, I have so much stuff.  Just wait til I pull out the shopping cart cover.

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This morning Caleb came up to me shortly after Scott left and said “I wanna call my Daddy!”  So I called Scott’s cell and asked if he was busy or still in the van.  He had a few minutes before his first stop, so I handed Caleb the phone.

“Hey Daddy!”

“Hey bud.”

“Daddy, can I play Monster Jam video game?”

Little turkey called his Dad to ask since he knows I usually steer him away from it!  Is he really just three and a half?  Because he’s WAY too smart.

- – -

One of my favorite sitcoms is Yes, dear.  I just figured out it comes on during his naptime (probably the third time I’ve watched TV during his nap since we moved here.  On this episode, the girls told their husbands not to worry about doing anything special for their anniversaries.  So the wiser of the two men knows they are really asking for something special instead of the same restaurant for the 4th year running.  They go in together and plan this amazing evening with a limo picking them up, taking them to a 5 star restaurant, and then to a Rascal Flatts concert.  Every possible thing goes wrong and they miss the concert.  They pull up to the door just as the concert is letting out.  Since it is a limo right at the door, the guys just come out and get right in.  They try to play it off that they are all from the limo company, and the end up explaining themselves, saying it was a double anniversary date that was supposed to be so special and everything had gone wrong.  So they pull over and the guys get out and sing God Bless the Broken Road to the two couples and the limo driver.  I love that song, so I started singing along, in my -hoarse, sick, I only have my voice back about halfway- voice.  Caleb was sitting next to me and he laid his head down on my shoulder.

“Mom?”

“What baby?”

“I don’t think you’re singing the right notes.”

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…And I know every parent probably feels this way. But I so won the kid lottery. Tonight has just been one of those nights when I look at my family and think, I am so lucky. I am so blessed. We are healthy (other than whatever plague has run away with my voice today). We are happy. We have everything we need. I have the most sweet, adorable, loving little boy in the world. I don’t ever want to forget these days. I figure I’ll probably need to hold on to them for dear life during the teenage days anyway. He gets up, leaves what he is doing just to run down the hall, wrap his little arms around my legs and say “I wuv you mom.” While we were watching Cars tonight, every few minutes, he’d kiss my cheek or turn my face toward him and say “I wuv you.”

And I can even say all this despite being woken up at 4:30 this morning to a soaking wet kid in a wet bed! He went right back to sleep in our bed, but I was up til 6 pacing around, fusing with cough drops and blowing my nose. I finally fell back asleep for an hour before getting up at 7:00 (hey that’s an hour early for me!) to get ready for an early orthodontist appointment. I discovered what I had already sensed, although not confirmed by talking to myself at 5am, I had no voice. Caleb got fussy at first “but I don’t want to whisper!” I explained again that I couldn’t talk any louder, I lost my voice (perhaps it is God’s way of telling me not to talk on the phone so much!). Caleb said “Oh. Well you have to find it then!”

By the time he and I arrived at my appointment, he asked if the dentist was going to “put my voice back in?” Sadly, no. It was a quiet day. I didn’t realize it until we got back there, but they were updating my records today, xrays and whatnot. I’m happy to say Caleb was very good. They take mugshots pictures of you in front of a DMV backdrop blue screen. For the first one she asked me not to smile. I heard a little voice bellowing out from the chair “Say cheese Mommy! Say cheese!” I could not keep a straight face. The dental assistant was laughing. I was laughing. We got through that and Caleb sat on the “slide” part of the chair (the leg/foot rest) as the dentist checked my teeth real quick and then we were good to go. Caleb got a sticker and introduced Charley to everyone, being sure to tell them that he was going to be bat for Halloween.

When we got home I found a hoarse version of my voice for a few minutes so I called my mom. After talking to her about ten minutes, her saying “What?” every other sentence, she says “Are you sick?” Nope. But here’s this sign you can wear.

I spent the majority of Caleb’s nap trying to find a white 3t hooded sweatshirt and pants. Turns out that is much harder than one might think. And really, why would solid white clothes for little boys exist? I agree it doesn’t make much sense. But seeing as how a dalmatian is white with black spots, there’s not much getting around it. But why make a costume when I could just buy one? See here’s the thing. Since I am so picky, I can’t find a Dalmatian costume that I think is cute. I know it is ridiculous. And just a memo to the ebay community, Dalmatian is spelled DalmatiAn, not dalmatiOn. More search results come up when you spell it wrong. I have looked at every single 3t and 4t dog costume that exists I think. I found one that I liked, but I missed the auction and can’t find another anywhere. I’ve searched eBay, yahoo, google, and amazon high and low for costumes. I’ve even tried to talk the kid into something different but he’s not even budging. Not even on the dog breed.

It has been a long week and a longer month. I really do want to thank each and every one of you for your support. It means so much to me. I am way behind on my blog reading. I’ve found the RSS reader to be both a blessing and a curse in that respect. We’ve been trying to keep the TV off a lot more too, so I feel like I read something real quick, then run off to go find a lost tire or help build train tracks and don’t come back to comment. I have lots of catching up to do! Our job situation, this week has teetered back to okay. Last month, thing took a stressful turn, but picked back up. Last week, business just completely died and Scott got an unplanned (unpaid) week’s vacation. Which made things very scary very fast.  Things feel unstable but okay for the moment.

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