Doo Dah Doo Doo

great big thanks to marlene for insisting we check out tim and eric awesome show great job-i finally found one single little episode scheduled, recorded it, and as aaron and i watched it start with this video we laughed so hard we could barely see. check it out. doo dah doo doo!

big day

well, tomorrow is kieran's first day or kindergarten. i can hardly believe it. sometimes i think about those first few weeks with him as a newborn, 5 years ago. aaron and i suddenly plunged into parenthood, completely overwhelmed by feedings, changings, sleep deprivation and our boy, so new and helpless like a baby bird. elementary school seemed like a million miles away and in a way it feels like we've come that far to get here, when it's only been 5 years.....

i am so proud of kieran and so excited, i know he's going to love this adventure.
***
not to be outdone, andie is starting mother's morning out and she can wait to bring a backpack, play with lots of kids, and have snacks! i am really curious to see how it goes dropping her off, she's inclined to be a little clingy at times, but she's been watching kieran go off to school and camp and playdates and i think she's getting excited to be a big kid and go to school too.

i'll have to post back with the results of the drop-offs....think happy thoughts!

a good read

well, i must say i'm kind of glad my book was stolen on vacation (don't worry, it was found on the beach later and i got it back! can't say the same for the phone, but it was a good thing). i had to start another book that i had randomly bought at the used bookstore and taken along, The Time Traveller's Wife.

big shout out to dori, trish, sally, and anyone i'm forgetting who had read it and encouraged me to read it--it's a bit long and difficult to connect with at first, but by the plane ride home i was hooked and i read non-stop until i finished it yesterday. it was soooooooooooooo good. the kind of book that makes you sad when it's over.

oh, and thanks girls for not laughing at me when i was surprised that the book was actually about time travel. oh no wait, you totally laughed at me. and you too, lady sitting next to us at the airport! who would have known it wasn't just an analogy??? oh sure, the title. ha ha ha, laugh at the blonde.

girl time

today aaron and kieran went to a white sox game and andie and i had the day to ourselves, plus she got some special time with grandpa and aunt julie when mommy and grandma snuck off to the movies!

for once the weather wasn't 90 degrees and after dinner andie and i hung out in the backyard. and yes, i realize she isn't wearing clothes. yet again. have i told you about my laundry problems? each thing i don't have to wash makes a difference.

p.s. is snuck (see paragraph 1) not a word? my computer's highlighting it....sneaked? just doesn't sound right. i'm leaving it.

back

i'm back from my mini-vacation. and it was so. damn. fun.

it was just perfect, i had a blast and i think all my girlfriends did too. i got back late monday night and must say, i'm missing it terribly. we lounged by the pool, we lounged in the pool (a non-children one, may i add!), we bobbed in the beautiful, warm ocean, we picked up shells, we read entire books, we ate meals in our bathing suits, we got sand between our toes, we got a little pink (okay, i got red, i totally fell asleep in the sun at least a couple times and forgot to re-apply). we bought cheesy trinkets, we ate lots of seafood, we laughed until our faces hurt, we dipped our lips into salt water before drinking margaritas in the ocean. it was seriously awesome. i feel so much more refreshed and less stressed even now, it was just what i needed.

there were a couple cruddy things that happened, and probably would have been more irritating had we not been in paradise. my beach bag was stolen and my cell phone is gone-thankfully i had the presence of mind to not have my wallet in it. aaron has already re-programed an old phone with my number, so feel free to call me now, problem averted! and **warning for mr. b** i started bleeding on my trip, which shouldn't surprise me at this point but seems unusual for the type of medication i'm on-but that's a post for another time.

despite these little headaches, it was so great to just say, "oh well, i have no control over this-let's jump in the ocean!" it was fabulous. i'm so glad my girl dori had a birthday and we had a fun excuse to escape to florida, it was beyond fun to connect with friends on a trip like this. i highly recommend it :)

moment of silence

thirty years ago today, elvis presley passed away. so sad.

there is just no one cooler. he is rock and roll.

i am so out of here...for four days

in a matter of hours i will be on my way to sunny FLA! it's been a long time coming but i'm going on a girlfriends trip to florida for a long weekend. no men, no kids. moms, sun, sand, ocean, flip flops, beach books, seafood. can't wait. what on earth will i do? i envision myself randomly grabbing a friend and insisting she apply more sunblock, reaching over at dinner to cut someone's food into bitesize pieces, humming the theme sing to the backyardigans.

can't wait, see you on the flip side!
*****************************************************************************

you almost laugh sometimes

so, things have been moving along for us, nothing big, just the usual business of our chaotic household. our brand new five-year-old is still obsessed with power rangers, spiderman, playdates, running around the loop of the house at lightning speed.

and andie seems to be starting some "terrible two" behavior, right on schedule. she's always been independent but she's testing her independence even more these days. i daydream about duct taping her to a wall for even just an hour so i don't have to worry about her getting into anything. her biggest love is to drag the barstools all over the kitchen so she can stand on the counters and get out anything she wants. i'll leave her along for a minute in the family room playing and i return to see her standing on the counter, or climbing the pantry shelves (sadly, she also just learned to open doorknobs this week, time to start using locks). we keep the bathroom door shut now, it started with her casually telling us "my hands are dirty, i need to wash my hands" and we let her. then the bathroom trips got longer and longer and eventually turned into near bathing in the sink--water everywhere, sink full of bubbles, andie chirping away upon being caught "i washing my hands!" her favorite toy is lotion though, a few days ago i suddenly found my angel covered in sublock "i have lotion!" she smiled happily. i groan, tell her she can't do this, she can't play with lotion. "okay!" i wipe the goo from her knees, towel up the puddle from the floor "i made a mess!" andie says, and i tell her "yes, and we don't make messes like this, no more messes andie!" "okay mommy!" i almost laugh during these incidents, when she floods the bathroom and i tell her not to do it, she always says "okay mommy!" so cheerfully. then when i remove her from the scene of the crime she starts screaming-she's so great at telling me what i want to hear but so obviously has no intention of following through.

i finally get the sunblock wiped up and the little voice asks so innocently, "mommy, can i have more lotion?"

5

our boy turned 5 on sunday.

on saturday he looked himself over curiously and wisely informed us that he "felt like (he's) already five." so that was a bonus.

to hear him tell it, 5 is the age where the world opens its doors to him and all things are possible. i hope he's right and it's an awesome year.

fun times

this looks awesome. do you love jack black or do you love jack black?

t-ball and gum

very busy lately.

just a couple pictures from kieran's last t-ball on monday. kieran just loved it, we're hoping soccer will be just as fun. and while kieran loves baseball, andie loves gum.

***

....i might need to get this too

law & order coloring book

i want these books

i need a new book, these look really fun:

I Was A Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids

&

I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

as for this second one, love that amy sedaris. for that i can thank my brother, who turned aaron and i on to strangers with candy. her brother, author david sedaris writes about how amy was to be featured in a magazine article about interesting New York women and when it's her turn at the styling table at the photo shoot she says, "I want it to look like someone has beaten the s*** out of me." so she was given black eyes, scratch marks on her forehead, a scabbed nose, swollen lips, stiches. she loves it, wearing it all day and if a rare passerby asks what happened she smiles brightly and responds, "I'm in love. Can you believe it? I'm finally totally in love, and I feel great."

those sedaris kids, too funny. i'd like to think that could have been my brother and i, right jacob? if i had a big fatty suit and you had a speech impediment.

mission accomplished!

i found the passports. yay :)

it was just this morning, in a pile of papers/books/magazines that had been on the corner of my counter for oh, about a month and a half. i had gone through it, i swear, probably twice and recently relocated this pile to my office to officially sort through a file (okay some is totally trash but my primary method of filing is to pile everything up for two months, and then eventually go through it and anything outdated gets pitched, anything file-able gets filed and therefore i always seem to have what i need on hand until it's outdated and subsequently pitched). so i'm sitting at my desk and randomly look into the middle of the pile of papers and there it is, a pink envelope with two passports in it, yee haw!

just the other day i told mother, "I swear i had your passports on my counter on top of a pile of papers and when you and julie stopped by after your trip i told you to grab your passports." and my mother had to admit that did sound familiar. then today when i called, jubilant, to tell her i'd found them she said she had just asked my sister, "when we stopped by joanna's house after the trip did she tell us the passports were on the counter for us?" and julie said yes. so, at least i'm not crazy-it was both of our faults, i did have them out for them, and i assumed they took them, but then they got lost in the paper shuffle and each of us were certain the other had those darn things. if only passports were neon yellow or something, that might help.