The bottom left picture is not part of the other two pictures, but something different, and edible.

To the party-goers: Please see that you eat as little sugar as possible this week, as we have your week’s supply covered at the party! haha

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But..wait…I didn’t think you had any siblings?

Well technically, I don’t.  But after knowing a family for the past 24 of my soon to be 27 years…I claim them!  So I headed out today solo (very strange to go somewhere with an empty carseat) to the bridal shower.  I had the pleasure of being event photographer.  Which ultimately means I come home and nitpick all my pictures and why I cropped it this way and why I didn’t shoot that from a different angle.  All I can say is, thank God for the digital darkroom!  I tried to quietly shoot without being noticed, as my preference continues to be the unposed candids.  I believe those capture the true personality and feeling of the moment.

…like your mother reading a verse that was read at her own bridal shower…

…and catching up with old friends…

~~~

Trying a creative angle

The gorgeous bride-to-be

This was a shy one, I had to catch her when she wasn’t looking.  She’s the flower-girl-to-be!

She is actually part of the groom’s family, though it might look like she belongs on the bride’s side!

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My sister inlaw was telling me tonight, she went out to eat with her son and daughter inlaw last week. She said anytime they go out to eat, BJ and Teresa sit on one side of the booth, and she sits on the other. But when the grandmother to be arrived at the table, BJ was sitting across from his wife. Nadine asked why the sudden switch, she didn’t know where to sit. BJ said she was just so beautiful, he had to sit across the table so he could see her.


Trying not to giggle during kissing lessons


Hands down, my favorite

Have I mentioned yet that I cannot WAIT to meet this baby?!  The shower preparations are underway and I have been comissioned for a few creative projects.  Keeping in mind my distaste for hot, muggy weather, I have never found myself so anxious for June to get here!

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Friday, February 20, 2009 – Last Friday

9:30-11:30am - Time Warner is scheduled to hook up the cable and internet.

1:26pm – Time Warner arrives.  Or the pothead in the creepy blue van that Time Warner has contracted the job out to arrives.  His laptop has the Southpark Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo for a screen saver, I shit you not.  Emblazoned on his screen are several turds in Santa hats with “Happy Holidays from Time Warner” written amongst them.   Is it February?  But really, the fact that Christmas was two months ago mattered significantly less than the dancing turds on the screen.

1:38pm - My sister inlaw announces that they need to head out (they had come by with the ultrasound pictures).  Caleb leans against his auntie looking up at her and wrinkles his brow.  “You have stuff up your nose.” I hide my face in shame.  “Well what is it?!” she begs the answer.  “Buuuggers!”  He’s mine, he’s all mine, wouldn’t pay the gypsies to take em.

3:52pm – Phone rings, it’s dad.  He’s calling for permission to rain check on helping with the move.  My mom informed him he should help.  But I know that we have plenty of help and he needs to go home (away from his apartment where he lives during the week).  He needs the mental and physical separation from the extreme stresses of his job.  Permission granted.  He asks what I’m doing.  I’m throwing stuff in boxes like it is going out of style.  I know there is a 24 foot truck inbound.  Caleb is…well…keeping himself entertained.  Okay, okay, you got me, I’m taking pictures instead of throwing stuff in boxes like I should be doing.

Here’s one of those sentences you never knew you’d say before you were a parent:  “Caleb you got stickers on the dryer when you were crawling in.  Please get them off.  And get out, I need to put the clothes in there!”  Yes I was still scrambling to do laundry in the ‘eleventh hour.’  I was determined we would move with all clean laundry in case I didn’t recover my washer and dryer for a week.  Scott squashed my determination by putting an immediate halt to the laundry campaign and loading the washer and dryer on the truck first.  And yes, it was nearly a week before that campaign resumed.

5:17pm – Everybody in the car, we’re going to Dominos.  No, wait, that was lunch Saturday.  Hardee’s!  Nope, breakfast Saturday.  McDonald’s, we’re going to McDonald’s.  Mom of the year, right here. *points to self*  One child covered in stickers wearing gigantic bear slippers in carseat, one Bat-a-raffe (giraffe dressed like a bat) in child’s lap.  I am digging through my purse for something when a little voice pipes up from the backseat.  “Mommy?  Where’s Charley’s penis?”  Thinking.  Thinking.  Ummmm. Stall tactics.  I forgot something in the house.  That’s it.  I forgot something.  I look up as Scott is opening the driver’s side door.  “Ask your dad!” I exclaim and slam the door to retrieve something from inside while congratulating myself on passing off that question.  Also, I may or may not have been laughing hysterically.

5:19pm – Back in the car.  “What’d ya say to that one?”  “I told him it was between his legs!  Where else would it be?”  OKAY.

5:26pm - She’s taking pictures in the drive through.  Why did she have to go back in to get her camera?  Why, why, why?  One day, when your son or daughter asks you the location of his/her lovey’s manhood sweetie, you’ll understand.

I’m embarrassing him already, he’s only three.  Hey buddy, I’m not the one wearing stickers and bear slippers with the bat-a-raffe

The people behind us probably think I’m nuts.  Oh well, we’re moving.  Who cares?

Don’t worry, the night got less and less funny as it went on.  Reality set in.  I’m a pack rat.  And a procrastinator.  Not a good combination.  We stayed up late loading 75% of the house into the truck.  The only pieces of furniture left were the beds when we got in them that night.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

8:37am - Hardee’s new country potatoes suck.  What were they thinking replacing hashbrowns with those???  I don’t want hacked up steak fry tidbits at 8:37am!  That’s all.

1:15pm – Caleb hugs and kisses the baby.  My heart explodes into a million pieces. Read more here.

2:52pm – BJ helped us move.  He needs to be on his way home by 3:15pm at the absolute latest, as he is playing the piano for a wedding at 5:00pm.  His car as at our old house.  Crap.  20 minutes away.  Crap, crap, crap.  Realize that we need to hightail it.

3:13pm – BJ tucks and rolls when we get to his car.

8:29pm - Caleb passes out with his little knee in the air (foot flat on the bed) he is so exhausted.

8:39pm - We are too tired to even hook up the computer ( the first time we’ve ever moved without hooking up the computer and TV on the same day).  Grab the laptop and cram the ethernet cable in the side.  Check email to reduce internet withdrawal jitters.  I was in the dark for 31 hours.  Scott made it 39.  So it’s only fair that he get first dibs.  I’m impatient anyhow.  Oh great internet, how I missed thee.

8:53pm - Lights out.  Scott slept on the couch, I slept on a mattress (no boxspring) in the floor in Caleb’s room.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

6:47am - Rise from the dead.  Or actually Caleb did.  Despite the early hour, I actually feel well rested and slept amazingly well on the floor.  Are you bored yet?  I’ll skip ahead.

Monday, February 23, 2009

10:16am - Trying to return to a sense of normalcy.  AKA we have no groceries, so instead of unpacking, we’ve taken a trip to “Law-mart,” as Caleb calls it, for provisions.

11:24am - We decided to pretend it is a vacation and wandered around the store for an hour.  Checking out now.  I’m digging through my wallet when I hear giggling.  Both the kid and the cashier.  From the corner of my eye, I see neon green Buzz Lightyear tighty whiteys waving through the air.  “Put your underwear back in my purse,” I hiss.  More giggling.  Another one of those sentences I never knew I’d say.  Cashier raises eyebrows.  I avoid eye contact.

11:31am - Take shopping cart to cart return while on the phone with Scott.  Walk slowly past and come almost in arm’s reach of a little bird perched on the carts before he flits away.  Tell Scott about it as I’m getting in the car.  Caleb asks, “Did he crap on you?”  Sigh. I’ve taught him well, haven’t I?  “No Caleb, he didn’t poop on me.”

12:59pm - I fell upside down in a box with my feet waving in the air while trying to write this diary and decided it was time to give it up.  Nah, just kidding, I hadja going though didn’t I?  It would have been funny.  I would have laughed.  No honestly, the times are approximate, I actually only made a few notes here and there on a text document.  It actually looks like a strange code that could only be deciphered by a mommy blogger.

PS. I think I found my wit.

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One of the top 3 sweetest things Caleb has ever done.  That’s what this falls under.  If you don’t care for the mushy gushy stories, just scoot on by.  I introduced you to BJ and Teresa last week.  Oh by the way, IT’S A BOY!  Anyway, BJ helped us move this weekend, and my sister inlaw (the grandmother to be) came over with Teresa and they brought us pizza for lunch with delicious cupcakes.  They got ready to go and went around to tell everyone bye.  Caleb has a routine in telling people goodbye, he always has to kiss both cheeks, then hug you.  So Teresa leaned over for her hugs and kisses.  Then Caleb hugged around her waist again, and are you ready for this…kissed her belly.  I’m seriously tearing up just writing this and had major watery eyes that day.  Caleb says he’s going to teach the baby how to play Herbies.  Of course.  I can’t wait until they can play together.  I’m just so excited and happy for them!  I can’t wait to meet this new little one.  And I’ve been officially hired as the on sight photographer!

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At least one thing is nice and neat. And has been since the morning after we moved.  Normally we would do it the night of the move, but we were just that tired.  I think our lights were out Saturday night by 8:45pm.

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If you stick around long enough, I’ll teach ya how we do everything down here in Nascar country.

    …It ended up bein the Clampetts go to Maui!
    Cuz you get my family together and there is an empty K-mart somewhere!
    They showed up at the airport they were usin coolers and grocery bags for luggage
    The sky cap was like “which ones yours? the Samsonite?”
    They were like, “no we got the igloo with the duct tape on it and the 5 piggly wiggly bags right there!”…     -Jeff Foxworthy

So we’re moving.  You already know that.  Scott walked by when I was editing these pictures and said “Sure, sure.  Make fun of the rednecks.”  Nah, seriously we’re not rednecks.  I’ll show you more proof on that subject next post.  But moving is always cheaper in the south.  Seriously.  Proven fact.  Know why?  Because there’s a 95% chance most of your family lives within 20 miles of you.  And a 99% chance that most of them have trucks, trailers, and brute strength.  So when Scott’s boss offered up a truck to move our storage building contents?  Well we jumped right on it.  There’s no better price tag than “Free!”

Take a very old…

…very rusty…


truck

Drive it home…

Just don’t count on it cranking right back up.

As an added bonus, it is a dump truck, so we were able to just back up the the porch and dump everything out!  Okay okay, so we didn’t really do that.  But it would have been cool if we did!  And I definitely would have taken pictures and video.

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We made the decision to replace Caleb’s Herbie.  I know I know.  You’re saying we should have let him learn a lessen.  I guess we sort of felt at fault.  We’ve always allowed him to take one or two cars in stores while we shop.  And Charley always goes also.  To this day, we have never lost one single $0.97 Hot Wheels.  So it figures that when he takes a car in that we paid a lot more than $0.97, and he holds it near and dear, it would be the first to be lost.  Neither of us checked to make sure he had everything he got out of the car with when we got back in.  So that’s my defense and I’m sticking with it.  We paid a ridiculous amount, again, to replace Herbie.  Caleb thanked me about 15 times when he opened the package.  He was so thrilled, and hasn’t put it down since.  I explained to him after his initial excitement settled that we would not be able to replace him again and he must take very good care of Herbie.  I told him we would make a special, safe place in the car that Herbie could sleep while we shopped.

So fast forward to two days ago.  We were getting out of the car.  You know where this is going.  The car that we searched ten times over, short of one place.  You know how the saying goes…”It’s in the last place you look.”  Well duh, you aren’t gonna keep looking after you find it, of course it’s the last place!  Ha!  Caleb laid down on the seat to get out of the car.  And wouldn’t you know, I small space underneath the carseat only big enough for a three year old’s hands or a Herbie car was revealed to be the hiding spot.

Caleb immediately picked out the differences though, however slight they are.  The thing he likes best about the new one is that it looks happier.  Herbie’s bumper is his mouth, and I must admit, the old car (left) does look as if he’s frowning.  The first has black hubcaps, while the new one has silver ones.  They are both Johnny Lightning, one came in a 5 pack and one came individually packaged (the new one).

I can’t believe I didn’t write about this over a week ago, but we actually went to meet Herbie.  Yep, as luck would have it, Scott was telling the secretary at work how much Caleb’s loves Herbie, and she replied “Well have you taken him to see the one across town?”  In disbelief, Scott drove by the house, and sure enough, there he sat in the yard.

The scariness that is google maps:

Think I’m kidding?  Here’s my husband standing out in the yard running his RC truck at our old house.

Anyway, back on topic, we took Caleb over there.  I didn’t have my camera!  We were already nearby on errands, so it wasn’t a planned trip.  Caleb just couldn’t believe it.  He ran around and around the car looking at him and talking to him.  This particular Herbie didn’t have any bumpers, Caleb was very concerned.  He didn’t have a sunroof either, but Caleb couldn’t see that.  Talk about not wanting to leave though.  He wanted to buy Herbie!  He wanted us to bring him home.  The whole way home he whimpered sadly that Herbie missed him and he missed Herbie.  He usually asks at least once a day if we can go see Herbie again.  He asked if I thought Herbie would talk to him next time.

He was so cute, but I didn’t anticipate the sadness that followed for a few hours.  Next time we’ll prepare better and let him know that we can only visit for a few minutes, but we’ll take pictures with Caleb and Herbie so that we can “see” him any time on the computer.

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So I’ve been really bad about blogging this year.  That’s all I got.  Moving along…

My mom is down for the weekend.  Because my parents, yes, my parents went to an Eagles concert.  Yep.  I went to bed last night before my parents even got home.  Anyway, rewind to Friday.  Mom and I met to go to the children’s museum and pick up a few library books for me at the library across the street.  I had an armful of books, Caleb was heading for the door in front of me and Mom was behind me.  Caleb ran right up to the sliding doors, however he went to the one that doesn’t actually slide.  He put his hands on it thinking it was a door that you push open.  About that time, along comes the sliding door and it caught four of his little fingers in between the doors!  The door kept sliding and drug him along.  As you can imagine, the very back corners of the city block sized library probably heard the wail.  I had to pull his fingers out.  It didn’t break the skin or anything, but I’m sure it hurt.  I piled the books into my mom’s arms and picked him up and took him in between the two sets of sliding doors (you know how department stores have an inner and outer set of doors with the in between area ).  My mom was shocked…the only library employee that came to check on him was a security guard.  And he was standing way across the huge entrance area talking with another employee.  In other words the checkout desk and information desk was much closer.  He asked if everything was okay and if he could get any ice or anything.  Another older man (grandpa age) must have been behind us in line checking out asked Caleb if he needed some money for the gumball machine to help him feel better.  He was sweet enough to offer up two quarters.

My mom said she was telling her friend about it over the phone and her friend said employees are trained not to acknowledge things like that to avoid opening themselves up to a lawsuit or having a situation where something happens, they acknowledge the problem, then it happens to someone else because the problem was ignored.  How sad that we live in such a sue happy world that employees cannot acknowledge a child’s fingers getting mashed in the door.  It was just an accident.

Luckily, by the time we crossed the street and dropped the books off at the car, Caleb forgot all about his hand on the way up the steps to the children’s museum.

In other news, we are still house hunting which is very discouraging, as we are under time and money constraints.  I have been reading a lot.  I’ve been trying to take a few minutes every day for myself.  Who would have thought that you could use those few minutes of “mommy time” to read parenting books, yet still feel rewarded and refreshed, and as a bonus, a better, more patient parent, having learned techiniques from the book as well as gained reassurance in seeing many of the techniques are things you already use.  One of the books I ordered with my Target giftcard is Kid Cooperation: How to stop yelling, nagging & pleading and get kids to cooperate by Elizabeth Pantley.  This is not the first book of hers I’ve read, and each subsequent book, I seem to like her more and more.  Two of the books I ordered were written by her actually, and one of the books in above mentioned stack of library books was written by her as well.  I’ve been reading this book like it was a thriller novel every spare moment I have.

With the new year, I have really tried to step back and look at a lot of things.  I have been in a rut, going through every day frustrated and tremendously short on patience.  The stress of the last six months has definitely taken a toll.  Between the job situation, the car blowing up, the house scenario, everything seemed totally out of my control, including my own child.  I didn’t feel like we were on the same page, connecting like we should be.  I don’t know, it is hard to describe.  I just felt like we were in an endless set of days that were going nowhere.

I made a conscious decision last week.  I am taking all of this out on him.  He’s feeding off my stress.  He’s acting out because I’m constantly frustrated with him and I’m constantly frustrated because he’s acting out.  I stopped yelling.  I stopped nagging.  I stopped whining back at him (“Will you pleeeease let me finish doing this <insert selfish task here>”).  I played games with him without thinking about how quickly I could get the game over with.  I read book after book without counting the total.  I snuggled with him, tickled him after naps, took him outside to ride his tractor around the median 72 times, and played trains with him.  He helped me make dinner.  He stayed in his pajamas til lunchtime stepping on fondant (which sticks quite well to the no skid footies on pajamas) and covering himself with powdered sugar while we worked on Herbie.

I’m embarrassed and sad to say it, but I felt like he was so relieved.  Like he was thinking “I have my mom back, she’s not being so mean anymore.”  He has been clingy, lots of hugs and kisses and I love yous (there was no shortage before, but now he is showering me with loveys), he wants to sit closer to me at the table, he wants to hold my hand, as a somewhat negative consequence, he’s waking up every night and getting in bed with me, even though the mattresses are pushed together in one bedroom right now, he still thinks of them as separate beds, thus he must crawl across my ridiculously long hair and get on the other side of me.  But not before giving me kisses on the cheek in the middle of the night.  I’ve seen manners that I’ve been begging and fussing for him to use suddenly become standard in conversation, not only with other adults, but with me also.  If he needs my attention while I’m on the phone, he says “Excuse me.”  Many times I say “Yes what is it?” and he replies “I love you.”  He just wanted to tell me.

So rather than beating myself up over the last several months of building frustration, I’m simply going to blog it and bury it.  And if I begin feeling that way again, I will remind myself to come back and read this blog.  Kids pick up on so much more than we think.  They are so emotional, even if they show it in different ways than we do.  One of the best points I feel the above mentioned book has made for me… Just because kids are just that, a child, a three year old, a ten year old, a seventeen year old, just because they are a child and we are the parents, doesn’t mean they aren’t due a level of common courtesy and respect.  Do you find yourself nearly tripping over your toddler for the 14th time today?  I know I’m guilty of this, I just blurt out “Move!”  But would you do the same thing to a stranger or another adult?  No you’d probably say “Excuse me.”  Little things like that are so easy to forget when you’re going through the motions day after day with those closest to you, not to mention under foot.  But go ahead and say “Excuse me” for the 14th time, and even the 15th, or the 22nd, because you’ll probably hear the same manners in return next time your little person needs to get by you.

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I think there was actually physical pain involved for me.  I had to have Scott do it!  I asked Caleb several times if we could cut it.  I don’t know what else we would do with it, so it wouldn’t make sense not to cut it, but still.  I was afraid he’d see me doing and be like “STOOOP You’re killing Herbie!!!!!!”  So with his blessing, we cut Herbie’s ass end off!

For once he was actually excited about eating “birthday” cake (even though this was just a test run).

His first birthday, I made a whole smash cake just for him.  He did what babies do at their first birthday, licked a little, smeared a lot.  Plus, he was more interested in the new vehicles that came with the cake.  Imagine that.

His second birthday, he barely noticed there was a cake, even though I slaved in the kitchen baking a total of four cakes (2 flopped, I needed 1.5 cakes to complete this masterpiece).

This is all he ate:

In keeping with tradition, last year, I outdid the year before with a multi-cake suicide mission.  I was so exhausted by the time we got to the party, I could have slept through it!  There was a cake for each person there -the cakes spelled out Happy Birthday Caleb #3- I even made the letters out of melted chocolate chips.

It appears this year will be no exception to my tradition.  The way I look at it…years from now, when we’re in parent/child therapy, I can tell the therapist, I might not be a perfect mom, but damnit his birthday cakes rocked.

I think he was still a little unsure of how he felt about the cutting of the cake, but then “Mmm… icing” side won out in the end.

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