brain dump. (ick. i’m awful at titles. fross.)
welcome to the mostly unrelated and unimportant stuff in my head:
* Caden-5yr used to pronounce ‘gross’ as ‘fross.’ It sounds the same, but has an ‘f’ instead. Whenever something is REALLY gross, usually in my head I think, “ew. that is fross.” apparently i forgot to creatively space the word m u d recently. i try to never forget that. m u d people – go away and don’t be fross.
* It really cracks me up when I find my mom at the computer, doubled over laughing because she is reading the subject lines of items in her spam folder. then she’ll read them to me and we’ll invariably say, “Fross! That is FROSS!” Most people just delete that ‘enhancement’ crap. But she prefers to enjoy the hilarity first. And I like that attitude.
* today my dad sent an email in response to potential Sunday plans saying “Whose daughter are you anyway? The Cowboys have a playoff game Sunday at noon. Planes will stop and hang in midair until it’s over.” I am not the daughter that email was sent to, but I enjoyed it immensely in a bratty, younger sister sort of “HA!” way.
Obviously my sister thought I was more mature than to have that reaction or she never would have forwarded it on to me.
She was wrong.
I am a brat.
And I should tell you that of course she’s watching the game on Sunday. It’s just like that with this family. TWO Cowboys/Eagles games in two weeks? SURE, let’s watch every minute.
* Daddy once cleared his throat and told me that the only way to drink coffee was straight up, “like a man.” This was years before Starbucks came to the Dallas area and made it socially acceptable to sip a latte. Looking back on that, he was probably kidding, but I grew up to be a “black, nothing in it” kinda coffee drinker. Parents are ridiculously influential.
* Mike and I took 3 boys to pick out Christmas bikes today. Went surprisingly well. I mean, one kid who substitutes the “F” sound for the “TR” sound needed to yell something with the word “Truck” a whole lotta times, but that’s just standard for us. 2 of the 3 boys do that, so I almost don’t even react to that word, whether it’s a boy trying to say “truck” or someone older with a less than pleasant vocabulary. But we do tend to cringe when they have occasion to yell “Mommy’s Monster Truck.” That one gets me every time, but I try not to show it.
Yes, the speech therapist has it on her ‘to do’ list. HIGH on her ‘to do’ list.
* Today at school I thought a dad was another dad that I knew from the summer’s t-ball season.
I do this all the time. Totally mistake people. I once came very close to throwing my arms around the neck of a guy coming out of a hotel room VERY early one morning. I thought he was my dad. (yes, i really CAN forget what my dad looks like) The look of shock in his eyes – only a few inches away – is the only thing that stopped me. Poor guy.
Today at school I was in the car waiting for Caden-5yr and I thought, “I know that guy…. it’s Curtis’ dad… yeah. He took pictures of the kids’ team…right….?” And right about then he turned around and looked at me, so I smiled real big and waved. He more than flinched. He jerked backwards – an awkward movement originating in his neck – and then he turned completely away. I’m glad he did that, because when he executed that paranoid here-is-my-back-you-crazy-lady move, I realized he had completely the wrong color of hair to be Curtis’ dad. Like, brownish-blond instead of almost black. Oops. I am crazy observant. Poor guy.
I know just how he felt. It was so clearly, “OH CRAP, DON’T TALK TO ME! NOOOO INTERACTION, PLEASE!” I can relate. No big deal. I didn’t even want to talk to the guy i really thought it was – i just thought i should smile and wave since he seemed to be looking in my direction. This guy might have a kid in one of my kids’ classes next year and it’ll be quite icky for him. But not for me, because I won’t recognize him anyway. Poor guy.
Sooo. Next time I’m not sure of who someone is, a much smaller smile, perhaps, adjusting for highly likely case of mistaken identity and also the possibly intimidating hugeness of my mouth.
I get my huge mouth from my grandmother. It doesn’t bother me. Mainly because I get it from my grandmother. But I would have rather gotten her laugh. (sooo cute.)
* someone emailed and asked if I minded the dive in readership here since I took that huge break. Might as well answer here, too. In a word… Nooooo! Don’t mind at all. It might have bothered me more if y’all hung in there for the better part of a year. I started this ages ago, anonymously, with no readers at all but with a plan. First – I wanted to record details of life. I forget the things the kids do and say. I wanted to remember. Second – I wanted to attract a readership so that a publisher would be all ‘hey! she already has an audience!’ and then find ME and I’d never have to navigate the how to get published headache. That was naive and crazy. But it worked, and one did come find me and buy my book. And then asked me sweetly just recently for information on another one. Isn’t that great? Anyway. Two original objectives totally met. Also, I got really overwhelmed with everyone else’s lives and felt like I had to remember every detail of every reader’s family and frankly, it made me nuts. Starting over is great.
* i haven’t gotten back into the swing of it, anyway. this disjointed entry is total proof of that – no telling how long it’ll take. in the meantime, don’t mind me.
i’m just recording a few details of life and if you want to join me, that’s all right.
The Unrated Soundtrack of “Boys In a Car”
i’m used to three little boys in a car and their noises and their conversation.
today was different.
today they were three little boys in a car all making their own individual sound effects
three little boys in a car making sound effects sounds very much like nineteen little boys.
i don’t ever want to be in a car with nineteen little boys.
but if i were, i’d know how they sound.
a little like parrots, cartoons, and Elvis.
they were occasionally singing a little Elvis.
the nineteen boys.
or three.
whatever.
no difference.
and then we arrived at our destination: a basketball game.
and the seatbelts came off.
only because they HAD to.
not because i wanted them to.
God knows i didn’t want them to.
and then it got worse.
the game was cute.
the ride home was the same as the way over.
but the nineteen boys smelled like sweat, Gatorade, and sugar from hideous sour stringy snack things.
that’s an unpleasant smell.
the sound effects started up again and then there was much dipping and swishing of the hideous sour stringy snack things into the Gatorade.
then there was much wailing and crying and gnashing of teeth when i took those things away from the two boys responsible.
it was LOUD.
and dramatic.
and the squawkiest, blue eyed kid can fake-cry like nobody’s business.
so well that it doesn’t even look or sound fake.
but oh, it is.
the kid is destined for the stage.
the one child not stripped of his Gatorade and hideous sour stringy snack thingys chews loudly and murmurs his delight.
just to make his brothers crazy.
he actually doesn’t even LIKE the taste and wishes he’d gotten something else.
but it works.
and his brothers are miserable.
so then he points out, helpfully, how he has made ‘good choices.’
but he’s 4 and all my babies talk funny until a good speech therapist gets ahold of them and it comes out sounding like ‘good foices.’
which is adorable.
the pronunciation, not the sactimonious four year old act.
he plays the part of the angel child perfectly, really laying it on thick.
giving the blue-eyed wailing kid some stiff competition in the acting department.
and now.
having survived lunch,
i put the little ones down for naps.
and it’s quiet.
finally.
the echoes of parrots and cartoons and Elvis are fading away finally.
it’s good.
for now.
because the next game is in 2 hours.
mike’s turn.
(thanks, honey.)
Fish Slime. Important Accessory. (if you’re a fish.)
On the way home from school Ethan-9yr says, “Mom. You should NEVER take the slime off a fish.”
Ethan-9yr often starts conversations like these. I adore them. It apparently has not occurred to him that I am not really big on random acts of fish de-sliming, and all the fish in the world are quite safe from me. But I play along. ”Well. Okay, babe. Why shouldn’t I do that?”
“It’s the fish’s first line of defense. If you take the slime off a fish it will most likely get infected.”
“The fish? Or the slime? And can slime be infected..? The only thing worse than fish slime is infected fish slime.”
“MOM! The fish. The fish will get sick if you do that, so just don’t.”
“Right. Do you really think I go around wiping off fish slime, Eth?”
“If you go fishing, I want you to have this information.”
I don’t tell him I haven’t really been fishing in years. Well, I have. But when I think of fishing, I think of when I was pretty young. Then, on Lake Whitney with our father, my sister and I would sit on the dock with our fishing rods with bright red and white bobbers, talking over all sorts of things while we swung our bare feet above the water. It never occurred to either one of us to de-slime a fish. We were more concerned with getting splinters in our legs from the dock, or accidentally touching the bright green slimy algae that clung to the support posts below.
When one of us DID catch a fish, we were perfectly fine handing over the rod to Daddy to take care of. If we had to take an obligatory “look I caught a fish” picture, we didn’t really get too close to it then, either.
Ethan-9yr had more bits of wisdom regarding fish scales and their role in fish health. We discussed these things as well. I was warned against intentional or unintentional de-scaling of fish. (As if this is necessary.)
But I was already thinking back to the days on the dock or the simple thrill of speeding through dirty lakewater on an old blue boat. LaLa and I wore really unfortunate, ill-fitting orange life preservers and we tightly clung to each other just in case our dad took a turn too sharp and threw us overboard. He never did (and he’s a real nice guy), but it didn’t stop us from thinking this was a strong likelihood. We combatted this possibility by holding on to each other, screaming, and singing songs we thought would endear us to God in our last terrifying, thrilling moments of life. Anything with the words “God,” “Lord,” or “Jesus,” that we could think of, we sang. The words were swept away in the wind and we could barely hear them ourselves, even though we were yelling.
I didn’t give fish much thought then, even though we’d begged Daddy to ‘take us fishing!’ I remember thinking that my sister and I really got along quite well when we were at the lake. And that the sunlight shining on our ordinary brown hair somehow made it pretty and shiny. And that Daddy could make us scream by flicking green algae at us.
If the three of us went fishing again, it would be much the same. I wouldn’t touch the fish, much less de-slime or de-scale them. I’d love the sunlight on my hair and try not to get splinters while avoiding the algae my dad would definitely be flicking my way.
It’s a freezing cold day. I’d really rather be on a sun-drenched dock with my sister.
Pretty Weather and Blue Moons
Today it is 60 beautiful degrees outside and thanks to recent snows, there are mud puddles around, if you know where to point your truck. And I know where to point a truck. It’s a good day.
I pulled into the preschool parking lot a few minutes early, and sat in the truck waiting. The Mavericks were singing Blue Moon REALLY loudly through truck speakers. I was humming, happily contemplating mud puddles when a guy knocked on my window. It’s a very tall truck and no one ever knocks on the window. And I like it like that.
So of course I screamed.
It was someone tall enough to knock on the window of my very tall truck, which bothered me a little. I rolled down the window, and only then realized that The Mavericks were still REAL loud.
Tall Cowboy waited while I turned the radio down.
Of note:
*I don’t like to talk to people I don’t know.
*I barely like to talk to people I DO know.
*Tall people standing right next to me are at a disadvantage with me because it always seems they are usurping the empty space above my head. That space may be unoccupied due to my height, but it’s still my invisible vertical property. Don’t lean into it. (yeah. usurping. you read that right.) This Tall Cowboy was the sort who WOULD have leaned into that vertical space if given chance.
*I know that because he knocked on the window.
*Yes, y’all who are not from this part of West Texas. It’s perfectly normal for Tall Cowboys or any other person of any description whatsoever to talk to you for no reason at all except that it’s WAY FRIENDLY HERE and there’s nothing that can be done to stop them. I know. I’ve tried. People here just talk to each other. Sigh.
He seemed amused. Maybe it was the tall truck. Or the loud scream.
I, personally, was NOT amused. I’d been VERY happy right before the knock and the scream. Once I turned down the music he said, “You don’t seem the Blue Moon type.”
I waited.
Surely there was more to this than… that? I decided silence was the way to go. Then he would get to his point.
I waited.
With a polite expression on my face. Slightly questioning.
But silent.
Because any second he was going to remember what he REALLY needed to say that was so important that he needed to make me scream.
He waited.
For what, I have no idea.
He still looked amused.
That bugged me.
It was somewhere in this seriously awkward silence that I realized four things:
(four? Yes. FOUR. It was a long awkward silence.)
1) he must have heard Blue Moon because it was WAY TOO LOUD. All the windows had been up.
2) you cannot win a silent waiting game with a Tall Cowboy. Particularly if you have to go get your preschooler and the Tall Cowboy has nothing better to do than scare the crap out of the mommies in the parking lot.
3) I can be instantly annoyed by a guy who thinks he can look at me and tell me what ‘type’ I am – especially if he’s wrong.
4) I’m terrible at recognizing people and I might actually know this guy.
So I asked if I knew him. I wasn’t going to outlast him playing the Quiet Game anyway.
“No. No, ma’am. I don’t know any Blue Moon girls. Just thought I’d say hello.”
Which made no sense at all because hello…? But he didn’t say hello til just now….?
“Okay.” I smiled. I hoped it was a friendly, polite smile that said, GO AWAY NOW!
He smiled back, nodded at me, and walked away. I turned the music back up and rolled the window up at the same time. Mel McDaniel was singing “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On.”
Tall Cowboy threw his head back and laughed.
And fortunately he did not come back or say anything else that didn’t make any sense, and I got Seth-4yr without further incident. Later, we drove through puddles and I played Blue Moon for him. I told him the name of the song and asked if he liked it.
He said, “No, Mom. I am not a Blue Moon kind of guy. I am just not.” Seth-4yr has a way with words.
Lucky for me, Seth-4yr is a snow-melted muddy puddle, backroads sort of guy, and his giggles mixed with mine as we splashed through a few.
It’s a good day.
Small treats. Small boys. Big thrill.
When I picked up Ethan-9yr at school today, he immediately launched into a very long detailed account of why he was holding a candy cane. He had a great deal of passion and intensity and I tried to follow it but just couldn’t.
“Babe!” I stopped him with that one word, and put my hands on either side of his face. I should mention that Ethan-9yr has the sweetest, softest face ever. A few darling freckles. Huge brown eyes. He stopped his candy cane related monologue and waited to see what I wanted.
“Hello,” I said.
He cracked up. “Right. Hello.” And then he held my hand all the way to the car and went on and on and on about the candy cane. It was of vital importance. And since he’d humored me and stopped and said hello (and lets me hold his hand at school still), I tried to follow the story. And when he was finished, I said, “So you’re explaining why you have a candy cane today on your first day back and you’re hoping that it’s still candy cane eating season and you can eat it today even though it isn’t Christmas anymore but you don’t think I’m going to say yes because I’m not going to understand that your friend MEANT to give it to you on the last day before Christmas break and really he did but Daddy picked you up a few minutes early that day and you better explain it exactly right so that I say yes, eat it, but don’t get the car all sticky ?”
I love a good run-on sentence. I really do.
“YES!”
“Yeah, okay. Just don’t get the car all sticky.”
I give him an intense mommy style stare that tells him that no, i haven’t forgotten the caramel fight (oh yeah – you read that right) between him and Caden-5yr in the backseat this last summer. Ethan-9yr has been on restricted backseat food and beverage privileges ever since.
Whaaa? That was in the summer, and he’s STILL on probation…? Yes. I am that kind of mean. And if that seems harsh, then I am betting that you have never supervised the scrubbing of the interior of a large SUV with 3 little boys and a tub of Armor All wipes.
Because that is even crazier than a caramel fight. That was insanity – and it would have been a world easier to just clean it up myself, but i thought I’d teach them more if i made them do it.
And i was right.
I taught all of us that i cannot stand the supervision of three boys cleaning up the baked-on mess of an old caramel fight. It drives me nuts.
Anyway.
Ethan-9yr and I went to pick up Caden-5yr, who had a giant pink lollipop. He didn’t have a big speech prepared about why he had it. He just looked at me with his huge blue eyes and said, “please?”
Today I’m especially grateful for big-eyed boys who aren’t yet embarrassed to hold my hand at school, and who can be so easily thrilled with me agreeing to a small treat.
And I’m REALLY grateful for the fifteen minutes of happy silence that occurs in a car where one boy chomps a candy cane and another boy tackles a too-big, pink lollipop.
Technical Breakthrough.
ha HA!
So I’m not techie. At all. I’m GOOD with that. Occasionally I will make lists of Things In My Life I Need Help With.
(really? who DOES that? who would actually DO that…? Me. Me, y’all. I do not have the sort of pride that would prevent that particular list making at all.)
I don’t make these lists OFTEN, but still. One year item #1 was “figure out how to work ipod.” I’d had one forever, but had no idea how to work it. That round thing on the front…? No one told me that you were supposed to use it like a dial and I didn’t figure it out on my own. Or read the little book. So I put it on my List, asked my sister one year, and voila. She laughed endlessly, but then told me how to do it and there ya go.
Also on one of these lists was “figure out how to put pics on blog.” Ages ago. Then I forgot about it. Then I stopped blogging. And totally didn’t remember to care to learn how to put pics on a blog. And today it just sort of happened.
Now! Now i think I FINALLY figured out how to do this! I used to be able to – back in my typepad days. And that’s no accomplishment whatsoever for more technically minded people. But for me? Oh yeah. This is big. I’m surprised at some of the photos taken on my phone this past year. Wanna see?
Ethan-9yr getting Xrayed at the othodontist. Caped. Cute.
Despite the solemn expression, he was thoroughly thrilled to be there. Just a little freaked by the heavy cape, I think.
Seth-3yr (at the time), adorably snoring and blowing spit bubbles. I have a MILLION of these photos.
Spit never looked so cute.
I have no memory of this, but apparently one day in the summer I wore workout gear and had very wrinkled hair. I’m so glad I closed my eyes, grimaced, and photographed it. That was helpful.
My mother’s cat. Tree Lover. Christmas ornament.
Every tree should have one of these. Living ornaments. It’s the new thing.
Despite this warm and fuzzy photo opp, Mike was less than thrilled with our tree dweller. We went with the clever tree theme of 100% Unbreakable thanks to this furry guy, but Mike was still sure that this kitty would knock the tree over on someone. He didn’t. The tree would shake violently, but it never fell.
And earlier today Mom’s cat and Mike had a showdown. Mike was determined to take down the tree, given that it’s January 3rd and all. The cat was having none of it. He hugged that tree with all his kitty might while all the ornaments came off. He didn’t budge.
Eventually, Mike won. He’s bigger. Not necessarily more determined, but clearly bigger than the fiercest cat treehugger, and the tree did come down.
And he was NOT pleased.
