Tiger and Me- the Even Dozen Club

This Sunday, Tiger Woods won his 12th PGA tournament, and Perry and I celebrated our 12 anniversary. Unfortunately, this won't be the reason why this anniversary will be so unforgettable.

I got up Saturday morning to do my usual chores of making a menu for the next week and create a shopping list from it. In doing this, I realize for the first time, that my anniversary is the next day. Crud. I can't believe, even with the crazy week I had, that I would forget. 50 lashes with a wet noodle for me.

Evening comes, and I'm waiting for Perry to get home from getting some home repair stuff so I can go out and get him a gift. At 8:30, I hear a thud and then Michaela starts screaming. They have some video game chairs that rock and it seems that she was standing on one end and Caleb jumped on the other, propelling Michaela into the air. She came down on her back and whacked the back of her head really good on the floor. I get her to sit down and put some frozen corn on it- wow, veggies are good for something after all! At 9:00, Perry gets home and the vomiting starts. As the resident concussion specialist, and recent first aider, I'm getting scared. Perry calls the nurse helpline, and even though she sounds OK, we decide to take Michaela in. Perry drives to the nearby urgent care center, to find out that it closes at 9:00. He then had a fun time with a toll booth cashier because he missed his exit when Michaela decided to go to sleep on him and worry him. After about 5 minutes, she decide that the state of Georgia can live without Perry's 50 cents and sends him through. At 12:30 I get a last update before I'm told to go to bed. Michaela is going to have a CT scan as a precaution, then they're going to give her some Gatorade to see if she keeps it down, then send her home. They got home around 3:45. Our actual anniversary celebration was pretty subdued. We kicked the kids to the kitchenette table, and had a nice adult dinner, while Anneliese walked around, begging corn and pork roast off of our plates.

I am so thankful to have Perry as a husband. He has kept me sane more times than he knows. He is the rock in this relationship and I appreciate everything he does for me. I could not have asked for a kinder, more loving man to be my husband forever. Perry, I love you, and you will be getting a gift, either today or tomorrow. Promise!

Oops!

*I finally got the pictures downloaded- Thanks Perry!!

I mentioned Caleb almost getting a concussion in a previous post, and then forget to say what happened (must be a thing with me and concussions, what do you think, Perry?). The day started out normal enough (after all of the rain and what not). I went to the school at 10 to drop off Caleb's Epi-pen and Benadryl. There was a little girl there that was just being picked up by her mom. The school nurse and I chatted a little about how sad to be sick on the first day of school. Three hours later, I get a call (I have the clinic but not the school on my list of numbers on my cell, how sad is that, lol) from the clinic- Caleb tripped when he was walking up the stairs to the playground and bumped his head pretty good. Off I go to the school. He has a HUGE knot on his forehead and two cuts by his eye. He also scrapped up his elbow. On the way back to the car, Joshua tripped on the sidewalk and scrapped up his knee. I think I'm going to go buy some huge boxes, cut some arm and leg holes and a face hole, pop the kids in them, and fill them with packing peanuts. I'll have to see about uploading the pictures- poor Caleb!

Bananas!

Anneliese LOVES bananas. I was holding a piece and letting her take bites off of it. I wasn't paying attention, and the next thing I knew, she had grabbed a hold of my arm to bring it down so she could reach the banana. With every bite she was dancing and mm-mmm-mmming. After she swallowed, she would say, "Yeah".

Now, as if waiting for a late bus in the rain this morning, and Caleb practically getting a concussion on the playground wasn't enough- I now have the COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT afternoon bus driver. We're near the end of the route (3 more stops after us), but they have it on the schedule as 4 minutes away from the start of the route. Last year they got out at 2:15 and were home by 2:30, 2:35 at the latest. I went out to the bus stop at 2:15. At 3:15 (yes, 3:15) still no bus. Finally I see the bus at the next stop up, where my friend's kids get off. He let them off the bus and just sat there. My neighbour drives up and asks if the kids were home yet. I said no, the guy is just sitting there. So he drives up and talks to him. At the corner where I am, he's supposed to turn left and go up my street to the next 3 stops (2 are on my street). He stops at the corner, lets a girl off in front of her house. Then keeps going STRAIGHT!!!! I try waving him down, but he keeps going. I call my friend to see if Michaela was on the bus, and she tells me her kids say she was, and the little kindergartener next door wasn't even on the bus! Her mom had NO idea where she was! I call the school, they tell me to call Transportation. I've been trying for over an hour and the number has been busy (wonder why?grrrrrr). The school calls me at 4, telling me the driver took her back to school. My friend came over to sit with the kids since the two youngest were sleeping.

The Weatherman Must Die

Well, okay, maybe not that drastic. Thumbscrews, maybe. Or babysitting for me for a whole weekend. Yeah, that'll be good punishment. I keep the news on in the morning so that I can hear the weather for the bus stop. Everything looked good this morning. Last year, the bus driver moved the stop to the end of our driveway since we were the only ones getting on at our scheduled stop. She told me at the last day of school that she might not be coming back, so we trekked next door to the bus stop. The bus is scheduled to be here at 7:22, so we leave the house at 7:15. Things are going great, then around 7:20, it starts to sprinkle. By the time I run home and get an umbrella, the bus will have come and gone. So we decide to get underneath a pine tree and all is well. Then I start hearing louder rain, and you can see it moving down the street. It's about 7:30 at this time. Great. By now, the tree is getting saturated, so we're getting dripped on. The 3 older kids are hiding under my shirt, because I'm convinced that any second the bus is coming, so it's not worth going back to the house. Anneliese is loving the rain. At 7:35 the bus comes, with a new driver. I take the youngest two and we trudge back to the house in the rain, which is starting to let up. About 2 minutes after we get back in the house, it stops completely. Ha ha ha. Good one, Heavenly Father.

Huh?

Joshua came up to me just now, asking me to watch him take his head off. Okaaaay. I watch him try in vain to pull his head off. "Mommy", he says sorrowfully, "it won't come off." It took everything I had to remain somber, trying hard not to laugh at his seriousness. I wonder what made him think that his head would come off, and then I wondered what he would do with it if it could come off. Better leave that one alone. I really don't want to know the answer to that.

The Last Hurrah of Summer

School is almost upon us. Tomorrow the kids will go and meet their new teachers, and Monday is the first day (excuse me while I go do the dance of joy). It was nice spending more time with all of the kids, but I won't miss the fighting they did with each other. Well, it was mainly Caleb and Michaela against poor Joshua. He got so used to being top dog for most of the day during the school year and they reminded him daily that he wasn't. Unfortunately for him, I think Anneliese has plans for a coup d'etat.
Yesterday was a doozy. I have a friend from my MOPS group that moved in last year just down the street. She has four kids, too, so we like hanging out together because, as she said, it makes us look less crazy. Our kids get along really well, although we think it is funny that they have all teamed up boy-girl. Her oldest, a girl going into 1st grade, is in love with Caleb. We thought she and Michaela would get together, but I guess we were wrong. She has twin boys going into kindergarten. One hangs out with Michaela, and the other is attached to Anneliese, much to his mom's worry, since that attachment is in the form of him carrying her around. Joshua has teamed up with her 2 year old girl.
The whole basis for the day started out with Backyard Burgers. On Tuesdays, they have Kids Eat Free night. For $6.37, we got 4 orders of waffle fries, 3 orders of chicken fingers, 4 sodas, and a really delicious mushroom Swiss burger. I think I have a new Tuesday night dinner plan when Perry goes out of town. Anyhow, the only one that my friend knew about was in Cumming, so we were trying to figure out something to do up there to make the trip worthwhile (just looking at the website, the closest one to us is a few miles away- YAY! I really like the food, can ya tell?). She has a friend who invited us to go swimming, so that killed a few hours in the afternoon. Last week when she told me about Backyard Burger, she told me about a park she had found, so we decided that this would be our morning plan to tire the kids out. It was a really nice park. Lots of shade, places for the kids to play, and a little manmade creek running next to a sand pit, so the kids could make sandcastles. Our day pretty much went like this:
9:45 Leave for park
10-11 Play
11-11:30 Picnic lunch at park
11:30-1 Play some more
1-3 Go home, get ready for swimming
3-3:30 Drive up to Cumming
3:30-6:30 Swim
6:30-7 Get everyone dressed in the cars for dinner
7-8:30 Dinner
8:30-9 Drive home

The kids had a blast. Anneliese even had fun in the pool. She usually grabs on to you and whimpers, but yesterday she was splashing, head butting Michaela, letting me put her on her back, and hold her out and spin her around. I thought the kids would fall asleep in the car, but everyone was awake when I pulled into the driveway. The kids had slept in a fort under the dining room table the night before, so I said they could sleep in it again last night. Caleb and Michaela pretty much went straight to sleep, but Joshua was up for over 30 minutes. At 3:45 in the morning I was awakened by the t.v. coming on downstairs. Both of the boys were up. I sent them back to bed. Everyone slept in. Joshua was up pretty close to his normal time, and Michaela followed not long after. Caleb was asleep till almost 9, and Anneliese slept until 9:30. That was nice. What's not nice is the housework I have for today. Ugh. Guess I'd better get started.

Breakfast for Dinner

Growing up, I remember occasionally have breakfast for dinner and it was always a big hit. I've done it a few times since the kids have come along, and no one but me seems to really enjoy it. It seems like Perry is just humouring his wife's strange eccentricities, and the kids all insist that you can't have pancakes for dinner because it's breakfast food (they also correct me if I call lunch dinner by accident). We had Kris's recipe for buttermilk pancakes, since I had some buttermilk left after making some KFC clone coleslaw (it was really good- which was good because I had tons of leftovers after the pool party). The buttermilk was very different from the kind Perry usually makes. He adds vanilla, which almost makes it like a dessert, it's really good. So go and mess with your kids' heads- make breakfast for dinner!

Good Morning Mommy!

How I was awakened this morning by my 3 1/2 year old.

"Mommy, the pee come out! And it was banana pee!"

Yummy Lunchtime

Boy, you know you're life is slow when you start posting about a sandwich, lol. I'm really trying to start eating healthier (and lose weight!) and lunchtime doesn't seem to have the same promise it did when a 99 cent chicken sandwich with fries was on the menu. The Sonic being built next to the church I go to MOPS doesn't help, either. Mmmm, Sonic....Lunchtime around here is pretty dull. Leftovers for me, corndog for Joshua, that sort of thing. I'm not very inspired to cook when the weather is so hot, so ungrilled cheese sandwiches are often on the menu for Mischa. Caleb will have a double mustard, mayo, and ketchup sandwich with tomato (he'll even have it without the tomato, lol). Today I was trying to come up with something that would compete with the evil fast food and came up with this- a grilled turkey and tomato sandwich with cheddar and mozzerella cheese. Pretty yummy, and Mischa even got her sandwich cooked, too! I might have to go out and buy some more bread and tomatoes. It was hard eating just one, but what good is healthy eating if you eat too much. Darn those calories!!!

My Sleepy Baby Is Gone *sniff*

When Anneliese was a baby, she would wake up around six in the morning, but I would be able to nurse her back to sleep, and she would then sleep until 10 or so. It was so nice having such a warm and soft baby snuggling against me. I would touch her cheeks, marveling at the soft colour under the surface of her peachy skin (I had read an article about Madame Tussaud's wax museum and remember how they said that this quality was important for them to make the statues lifelike, but that it is really hard to do). Her soft hair would tickle my nose. Now she is entering her toddler years, with all the zest of life and energy to go with it. Getting her back to sleep is just a dream now (even when she woke up at 6:30, well ahead of her new wake up time of 8, I knew it would be hopeless). She can't sit still long enough to get sleepy. Always looking around and wanting to play. I watched a show yesterday about the first three days of this couple bringing home their baby, and watching the little baby sleeping in his crib made me want to rush over and pick him up. I guess I'll have to wait until I'm a grandma. *sniff*

Favourite Song

This has been one of my favourite songs for a long time now. It always makes me mist up now that I have kids. I hope that they always remember who they are and how special they are.

Fingerprints of God
By Stephen Curtis Chapman

I can see the tears filling Your eyes
And I know where they're coming from
They're coming from a heart that's broken in two
By what you don't see
The person in the mirror
Doesn't look like the magazine
Oh, but when I look at you it's clear to me that...

I can see the fingerprints of God
When I look at you
I can see the fingerprints of God
And I know it's true
You're a masterpiece
That all creation quietly applauds
And you're covered with the fingerprints of God

Never has there been and never again
Will there be another you
Fashioned by God's hand
And perfectly planned
To be just who you are
And what He's been creating
Since the first beat of your heart
Is a living breathing priceless work of art and...

Just look at you
You're a wonder in the making
Oh, and God's not through, no
In fact, He's just getting started and...

Hear it here.

Is Daddy a Superhero?

Today was Caleb's singing debut in Church. He sang in a quartet, with each kid getting to solo on half a verse. He did really, really well. Definately gets it from his dad's side, though, lol.
When we were leaving, though, the funny thing happened. Everybody walked through one set of doors, but Joshua went to the right instead of straight to go through the next set of doors (there were kids his age over there). Perry kept calling out, "Joshua. Joshua". Joshua looked up and said, "Are you invisible?". He finally turned around and saw Perry, wherein he remarked, "You're not invisible!".

I've Gotten Better Since High School

I guess motherhood has sucked out all of my nerdiness- I probably would've scored higher, but I didn't remember a lot of my periodic table. Mr. Forsman would've been sad.

Family Ties

Today is my uncle's birthday. I feel bad because it just made me realize how unclose (is that a word?) I feel to most of my family. We've lived 30 minutes away from him for two years now and I haven't seen or spoken to him. I saw his wife, once, taking Grandma back to their house. My dad works with him and rarely sees him. They have no kids, so there are no cousins for me to feel connected to. But it's just not this uncle. I an uncle in South Carolina and an aunt in North Carolina, and I haven't called them since we've moved here. My other aunts, uncles, and cousins live 1-3 days away and even when my mom talks about how close her family is, I can't help but not feel close to them. It's not awkward when we get together every 5 or so years, but I could go just as long without calling them or only exchanging Christmas cards. Even with my mom and sister, they do most of the calling.
All of this makes me miss New Mexico, when we lived in the same town with Pat and Kris and their kids. It was the closest I had had family, and I wanted my kids to have a chance to be close to family. They now have 2 cousins that they get to see once or twice a month and more cousins that we see every 6 months or so, but it was great to get together twice a week or more. When we were deciding whether to move out here or not, that connection carried a LOT of weight. I miss that.
Happy Birthday Uncle Paul!

Redecorating

Today the blog- tomorrow the bathroom! Yeah, if I had the time or energy or inclination to live with the mess. I have it all planned out, though. For me, the hardest part of any project is what I want the finished product to look like, so I'm over halfway there!

A Male Perspective

Well, Perry has decided to join the blogosphere, so now you might be lucky to get his take on the craziness that is our home. He is very competitive with his twin and now he can claim the most posts title- and I get the credit, lol!

Run Away! Run Away!

I had been promising to take the kids to feed the ducks for awhile now. We tried one pond that I knew of, but there was a sign posted not to feed the geese. So, I talked to my friend when I overheard her mention taking her kids to feed the ducks. Turns out there is a lake not too far from us and she said the ducks were usually nice, though the last time they went, the geese started to get a little snippy. Deciding to take our chances, we gather our stale bread and head on out. We find a nice parking spot by the lake and an adult and 3 juveniles (they were still downy, but were getting the colouration of adulthood, but the markings were grey) come waddling out of the water and into the grassy area between the lake and the parking lot. The goslings were peeping left and right, it was really cute. I take out the bread and instruct the kids to throw it away from us as far as they can. I hear some loud splashing from the lake- there are more geese showing up. It was really neat to see them landing in the water. I look down the path along the lake side. More geese are coming, and coming fast. Joshua starts crying. He's got his bread and those geese are as tall as he is. I look around and we are outnumbered 10 to 1. I counted 40 geese around us, with probably about that many on their way. I decide to cut and run while we still had time. "Ok, kids, back to the car, and fast!" The geese started following us to the car. I was starting to feel a little scared at this point since I was the one holding the bread. Luckily, Joshua dropped his entire piece of bread. The goose that grabbed it couldn't swallow it, so the other geese were following him, trying to get their share. Those geese got only 4 slices of bread. I guess the birds in our yard will be getting a little treat tonight.

Procrastination

A few years ago, my sister sent me a magnet that said, "Housework is evil. It must be stopped." Now, I don't know about it being so evil that it must be stopped, but a little procrastination here and there can't be too hard a punishment for it. Contrary to what my mom might remember about my teenage years (and college years), I love organizing things. My problem is that I have to find *just* the right system for whatever I'm organizing. And that hardly happens when I need it to. Flylady is helping ("you can't organize clutter"), but I'm not as devoted to that as I need to be. I'll let things slide one week ("it's not that bad today, I don't feel like doing it"), then the next week they'll be too big to do in the limited amount of time the kids let me have. I also have a little Gemini cleaning personality- a room that is constantly clean and organized makes me feel really calm and happy. On the other hand, the rush of accomplishment I get when I wipe away noticeable dust or pick up a very cluttered room gives me a sense of pride ("did you see what I did?"). The downside to that is the anxious feeling I get and I can't think straight in a messy room.
Well, the laundry is piling up and the dishes stacked on the counter are balanced precariously, so I'd better stop procrastinating and get cleaning.

The Upside of Travel

Perry does a lot of traveling, which isn't the funnest thing for me at home. I'm SERIOUSLY outnumbered, especially now that school is out. Finally all of that craziness paid off. Perry called last Friday and said that he and some co-workers were talking about their Fourth of July plans and where they were going. Perry realized that there was no reason for us to hang around home and started looking online at places near the beach. He found a sale using his hotel miles and later that night we were starting to get things ready to go to Destin, Florida. This would be everyone's first trip to Florida but mine. We took off early Sunday morning- Caleb even set his alarm clock to 5 a.m. Michaela made up songs for Alabama and Florida when we entered over the state lines. The hardest part of the trip was trying to explain the time change to the kids when they were hungry for lunch at 11 for them and it was only 10.
We arrived about an hour early for check-in. We went to a nearby store to buy beach towels and then crossed the street to go to the beach. Joshua, who had made us take his shoes and socks off about 10 minutes into the drive, insisting that they had sand in them, stopped and would not move when it came to walking on the sand. We had to carry him, kicking and screaming, down the sidewalk and onto the beach.
We checked into the room and went out to dinner. After dinner, we went to the pool. Anneliese hated the water, even though it was really warm. The next morning we got up, ate, and headed to the beach. We are used to California beaches and were unprepared for the complete difference ahead of us. The water was WONDERFUL! So warm. I still remember how freezing the water in San Diego was 3 years ago. We wore water shoes, familiar only with the rockiness of California. Anneliese cried the whole time, even sitting on our laps on the shore- and let's not talk about the screaming that took place when the water would occasionally come up to where we were. Josh cried and wouldn't even make sand castles. Whenever the waves came up, he would hold his hand out, palm facing the wave. We finally asked what he was doing and he replied that he was using his "blue power"- I think I have a Jedi knight in the making. Caleb and Mischa loved the water. Mischa loved the "ooey-gooey sand" that was a mixture of water and sand. We went to Destin Commons, an outdoor shopping mall that evening and got dinner at a drive-thru since Josh was losing it. We were originally planning on hitting the pool before check-out the next day, but made an 11th hour decision (okay, it was more like 10:00, lol) to hit the beach instead. The kids fought us a bit on that in the morning. We decided just to wear sandals instead of the water shoes because it was such a pain getting the sand out of them the previous day. The instant our feet touched the velvet softness of the sand, we were kicking ourselves for wearing shoes the previous day. We had a rule, that since the kids didn't have floaties, that they couldn't go in more than knee deep without one of us. Caleb found himself in trouble a few times the day before. He got knocked down a few times, and it was funny to hear him say "too deep!". Right before we left the day before we had a scary moment where he was in almost literally over his head. I'm glad I looked up to see where he was while I was rinsing the sand pails out. Josh and Anneliese didn't like the water that much more on this day, but they calmed down once they were out of the breaking wave section. Josh played in the sand and used the force on the waves some more.
We took off back for home on July 4th. We made it home in time to eat some dinner and head out to watch the fireworks. Last year, it rained and stopped only enough to have the fireworks show. This year, the rain started right after the show. The three big shows in downtown Atlanta were cancelled. The Roswell (where we were) and Stone Mountain shows started about 15 minutes early, since they saw the rain coming in.
All in all, it was a really nice vacation. The drive was a good length (and the DVD player didn't hurt), the weather was perfect, and we got to spend time together. And the hotel was almost free. Couldn't forget that little factor that made the whole trip a possibility.