Apologies

I am getting into the rush of things now and the big clock that sits in the front of my head counting down to the end of the year is ticking quite loudly. My brain, most of the time, is now filled with not only the jukebox selection of the day (Apologies by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, in case you were wondering; video at the end of this post if you care to listen) but a running list of all the things I need to do, purchase, create and avoid for the next 2 months. Because, quite frankly, October is over and in my world I am officially in the "holiday season".

May as well pull out the Christmas music. Mwahahaha!

Anyway, I realized this morning that November starts next week which means that my yearly NaBloPoMo quest begins.  So, you have something to look forward to - a post every day for the month of November! Woot!

Sorry.

Hopefully I can keep things interesting, but as you know, if you've been following my blog for more than a year, NaBloPoMo often forces me to talk about the daily mundane things just to get a post out. But I will try to do better this year.

I always try to do better. It doesn't always work.

So I've been meaning to blog about my cloth diaper experience in the past couple of months.  I have always been a big advocate of cloth diapering. I cloth diapered Kiddo until he potty trained. I loved using cloth, Kiddo was much more comfortable in them and we rarely had issues with diaper rash or anything else.  So with Port, I cloth diaper too.  I am able to use the same diapers I used on Kiddo (saving me TONS of money) and it works out pretty well.  Port is susceptible to diaper rash and for some reason the cloth doesn't help that (it actually has almost an opposite effect) so I have to change him the instant he gets wet or he will break out.  But now, he is so stubborn about being changed that it is really becoming a pain to get him to cooperate for a diaper change 4-6 times a day.  Teething brings out those wonderful, frequent, messy poops too and the cloth diapers...well they just aren't cutting it anymore.

Because he hates being changed so bad, he fights me and runs away and denies he needs one for as long as he possibly can. It has come to the point that, unless he was poopy, he is only getting changed about twice a day. And anyone that cloth diapers knows that you pretty much have to wash every 2, 3 days tops or the diapers get real ugly real quick.  But when we are only using 2-3 diapers a day (we've always used sposies at night), it doesn't make sense to wash every 2-3 days because there's not even enough to make a small load. But then I let the diapers go a little too long a couple of times and getting all that clean and sanitary again was disgusting and a headache to say the least.

Sooooooo, about 2 months ago I quit cloth diapering.

I feel pretty bad about it, but it is just easier at this point.

And I am kind of debating whether or not to go ahead and try to sell the diapers I have. They are still in great condition (especially the smaller ones), but I know that diapers have really come a long way since 6 years ago when I bought them.  But, on the very, very slim chance we have another baby some day, I don't really want to have to buy another set. Slim, slim, slim...

So - anyone out there interested in a barely used set of Medium sized Fuzzi Bunz or a slightly more loved and used set of Large Fuzzi Bunz? I wonder if I can even get anything for them at this point.  I also have a few other kinds of cloth diapers that are in even better condition because I used them even less. And a couple have never been used.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In other news, I met up with my friend Jen and we took the boys to the pumpkin patch on Monday. I had to get those yearly pics in before all the pumpkins were gone. Of course, we chose by far the windiest day of the year to go. Thank goodness I don't have long haired little boys!

This first shot is a crop from one where Port is standing in front of Kiddo. I just stop and stare when I see this image. Kiddo looks so grown up! ugh!

 Is it really too much to ask for SOMEONE to look at me?? Really?? Hello?!? Look at Mommy!!!!

Look at Mommy, boys!

Seriously, look at me! Look at the camera! Look over here!! Boys!! Kiddo! Port! Look at Mommy! Where's Mommy?!? Hey!!!

I give up. 

Until,
D :)

This Little Babe

Port woke me up at 5:45 this morning. This is the second time in so many weeks that I have received such an awful wake up call. He was screaming at the top of his lungs like he was absolutely terrified.  When it happened last week I took him to the couch (at 3:30AM) and tried to sleep with him there. He would settle back into a good sleep, but every hour or so would wake himself because the was screaming in terror and scrambling backwards away from me.

I guess this is what night terrors are like?

Thankfully last night he didn't wake me until after 5.  We didn't really sleep much after that. He wiggled around and squirmed and fussed until just before it was time to get Kiddo up for school. Of course.

He has been absolutely crazy lately.  Some days he eats like a horse and some days he won't eat anything at all. Sometimes he has his fingers crammed into the back of his mouth and some times he is totally fine. I think this is just a time of huge growth in all areas, and the poor guy can't keep up.

Recently he has taken to saying things are "broken".  If he can't get something to work the way it should, it's broken. If he needs the door open and he can't do it, it's broken.  And now, if his diaper is too wet, it's broken. He has come out of the bed in the morning twice now, nekkid from the waist down. And he runs to me saying "Momma ees bwoken, ees bwoken!", referring to his diaper.

I don't mind the announcement so much, it's the taking it off that bothers me.

He's speaking a lot better now too. When he wants me to come play with him in the living room he says, "Come, Boy. Let's take a walk."  I am not sure where he got that! Conversations are becoming more in depth and real.  He talks to the animals as if they talk back to him. "You wan some food, Mimi? Ok, I get you some food. Be riiiiight back! How's dat Mimi? Ees it good? Das good, Mimi."

Mimi is the cat.

He likes to push me on things. He tried to get me on his tricycle once...

The tiny tractor worked much better.

He is into everything. Drawing, singing, dancing, playing games, reading books, playing on the computer (and he can navigate the thing better than I can sometimes). He loves my phone and has created some lovely folders for my apps without asking me. How thoughtful.  He copies everything his brother does. He follows Kiddo around like a shadow and drives him nuts. When we get ready for school in the morning he has to wear a back pack to the car just like his brother. I have to make sure we have it in the car at pick up so he can wear it back in the house, just like his brother.

He lines up his toys at the end of the driveway.

When I am in the shower he likes to line up the hair clips on the sink and get into my makeup (that is when he's not screaming at me to get out). This morning he actually managed to get the mascara on his eyelashes, among other things.

I was only slightly jealous of their length and fullness.

The big scab on his forehead is from an injury from falling in the yard last Saturday. This afternoon he drove his tricycle off the back deck and scraped up his nose to match.

I don't know how I am ever going to keep up with him.

Until,
D :)

Stuff Like That There

It's been a busy couple of weeks here again. Last Friday we took the boys to Kiddo's school Fall Festival.  They got to dress up in costumes and play games and ride rides.  Kiddo had a blast. I think Port didn't care for it much. He wasn't fussy, just not really amused. There wasn't a lot for him to do (that I felt comfortable with) except watch his brother run off and play with bigger kids.  

 
Kiddo however, jumped in the bouncy house (and now daily asks for us to get one for the back yard!) played put-put, bean bag toss, did some weird bumper tube thing and got in the larger-than-life Hamster ball. Have you seen these things??? Crazy!

 Yes, that is Hubby in the hamster ball above. Kiddo is in the one below. He didn't quite grasp how to make it roll...

The boys got to try cotton candy for the first time (a total hit of course). Somewhere around 7:45 we were standing in line for balloon animals and Port told me he wanted to go to bed! Poor guy, he was pooped.  He's never asked for bed before, and this time he was serious.  He wanted to go home, put on "jammas" and "have bed."  I felt pretty guilty for keeping him out so late - both kids' attitudes were pretty volatile the last half hour we were there.  Thankfully though the balloon swords made everything fun again and we made it home without a melt down.

On Sunday Kiddo lost his second tooth.  He was eating pizza for lunch and a few minutes after he had finished eating he came running up to me and said something was wrong.  He said his mouth felt funny. I looked in and sure enough, the tooth was gone. The look of horror on his face was hilarious and he grasped his throat with both hands and gasp as he said "I swallowed it!?!?!" I asked him if he had felt anything crunchy in the pizza and he said no.  He had been drinking something too so I went over to the table to look in his cup just to make sure it hadn't fallen out in there and that was when I spotted something sitting on the table. Right in the middle of everything was his sad little baby tooth! Somehow it fell out of his mouth and landed on the table and he didn't even realize it. I picked it up and held it out to him in my palm. He took one look and exclaimed,

"WHAT tha??"

Yeah, that got a laugh too. Hey, I'm just glad I didn't have to decide whether or not to dig through poo to find it. Shew! Dodged a bullet there!

Monday Kiddo came home and announced that he was chosen as Wildcat of the Week at his school.  They bestow the honor on kids who have displayed good behavior and respect. They get a special poster hung on the wall with pictures and fun facts about themselves, their name is said over the intercom and the parents are invited to come have lunch with them on Friday.  Kiddo was so excited.  He can't wait for our lunch. I am so proud of him!

Friday is also picture day. Joy. Of course, I am a tad annoyed at the whole school picture package thing. I know I can take better pictures of him if I need to (like to give to the grandparents and such), but I do want a school picture as well, just to have. All I want is one 8x10, but noooooooooo! You have to buy a package. It looks like the cheapest I can get away with and still get an 8x10 is about $26.00. Sheesh!

Money, money, money, money, money. It is always something. And I don't mind paying $25 bucks for a nice 8x10, but we all know the picture will be crap. lol

Well I should get back to editing and preparing my quarterly taxes. Joy.

Until,
D :)

Random Rules

This post started out as something really great in my head, but somewhere between the driveway where I was thinking about it and the computer, I lost the story.  So, it is now just random thoughts. I apologize for my lack of writing skills today...

On the way home from the grocery store today, I happened to look over into the retention basin at the entrance to our neighborhood. Sitting in the grass was a basket ball.  I assumed it belonged to someone in one of the nearby houses, but I wondered how long it would sit there before someone walked or drove by and stopped to pick it up.

It was a pretty nice basketball.

I have always been someone who subscribes to the thought that if something isn't mine, I don't mess with it.  The "finders, keepers" philosophy has never been something I could wrap my head around. I empathized with the "losers, weepers" team.  It sucks to lose something, and wouldn't it be nice if the other side of that rhyme was "finders, givers back?"

What am I talking about??

Anyway, it made me think about how, when I was in high school, my dad bought a basketball goal for the driveway.

I don't play sports. I am an only child.

um

So, I didn't really understand why he bought the basket ball goal.  I don't remember ever asking for one. But, I guess it was kind of a cool thing to have. My friends and I wasted a lot of time shooting hoops.  It kept us outside a lot, so maybe that was the motivation.

Heck, for all I know, he was trying to find a way to attract some boys to me or something.

I never dated in high school. At least not until senior year.

He actually dug a hole on the side of the driveway and secured the goal post in the ground with concrete.  I bet it's still there. That sucker wasn't going anywhere.

But the most important rule for the basketball goal was that the ball had to be put away when we were done.  I wouldn't even dream of leaving it out in the yard or sitting in the drive way.  It had to go on the rack in the garage.

I had always been taught to leave things the way I found them.  If I walked into a room and the light was off, I made sure to turn the light off when I left. If the door was closed when I got there, it was closed on my way out. It seemed like common sense, really.  It is probably also the reason I find myself straightening shelves in the supermarket...

Anyway, there is a house next to the retention basin that has a basketball goal in the back yard. I suppose the ball belongs to them. May parents would have had a fit if I had left the ball outside of the yard like that.

Random.

Until,
D :)

The Weekend

Even though it was a school holiday for the kiddos, I had to get up early and go to Kiddo's school at 8AM this morning. It is a teacher work day and so they hold all the parent teacher conferences on this day.  And I guess because Kiddo's name is the first on the roll, I had the pleasure of not only being up early, but dressed and made up as well.

Ugh.

Happy Monday!

Actually it wasn't all that bad. It's not like a pony tail, powder and mascara takes too long to do.  It was however, difficult for me to concentrate on the teacher knowing that my french vanilla laced coffee was waiting for me in the van.

Thankfully the meeting only took about 10 minutes.

Kiddo is doing great.  He gets along well with other kids, they all like him and his teacher is completely blown away by how well he reads.  She has tested him as best she can with the tools she has and she said her test maxes out at the 2nd grade level for reading. She says he is reading way above that and want's to know exactly where he is though, so she is going to try to set him up with the specialist at the school that can test him further. She said she is going to set up a special box for him with more challenging reading materials and that she has already been giving him books from the Magic Tree House series to read while the rest of the class is working on reading (he already owns and has read several from that series).  She said he writes really well and that he just needs to work on putting more space between words.  His math and social skills are "right where they need to be", and her only "issue" that she mentioned was that he gets his feelings hurt easily.  She said they've been working on all that as well.

She gave me a folder with a bunch of things for him to work on, and then admitted that he doesn't need to work on any of it because he has already mastered it. lol! I had to laugh at that - she had a stack of laminated sight words and said that since he already knew them, maybe I could start working with Port on them.

I am proud of my boy and glad that his teacher has recognized his strengths. I was a bit worried that he would be bored while the other children are working on reading and writing, so it is comforting to know he will have more challenging work to keep him occupied.

This weekend was great! I had a senior session on Friday evening and on Saturday I shot a maternity session in a beautiful location in Dallas.  I drove up there with my friend Jen, who is also a photographer and who consequently had her own session to shoot there as well. We brought along 2 other friends to assist us on our shoots and it was such a blast having them there.  We left town a little before noon, stopped at Sonic on the way out and headed out for adventure.  Along the way we talked, laughed and even called 911! (more on that in a minute)  We arrived earlier than expected and had plenty of time to walk around and scope out the area we would be shooting in.

It was the most amazing place.  I am so glad my client suggested we shoot at the Mandalay Canal at Las Colinas! The Thursday night before we left, Jen discovered that we had to pay a fee and needed a permit to shoot there. It was a huge scramble to get the permit notarized and the payment made in time, but I am so thankful we did because it was sooooo worth it!  That place was absolutely crawling with photographers! We spent the whole time jockeying for position in the different spots along the canal; it was comical to watch each photographer and their clients do an almost choreographed dance between the prime spots. Everyone was very cordial and did their best to stay out of the way of other photographers. I was very impressed. I have had sessions at certain locations in Austin that are popular with photographers, and things have not been so polite. ;)

I had parked my van up at the street level close to, but no where near the front of an Italian restaurant. The street parking was not designated specifically for any one business in the area, so I knew it was ok to park there for the duration of the shoot. However, the restaurant has valet parking in the evenings, and when I came back to the van at one point to grab a shirt out of the back, I noticed that the valet service had set neon green caution cones (with the word "valet" written in black marker) up along the side of the street. They were positioned for at least 100 feet in either direction of the restaurant.  There were several cars besides mine parked along the strip, and I know many of them were from the photographer and clients in the canal below.  I got my shirt and was locking up the van when I heard the valet call out to me.

I turned the opposite direction, ignored him and hastily ran down the stairs to get back to my assistant and gear down below. The valet actually chased me into the stair well and told me I needed to move my van. I knew he had no authority to make me do that. I was legally parked on a city street and had parked there LONG before he put out his Sharpie inscribed "caution" cones (neon green??? really??).  So I turned and said, "ok, in just a minute." and continued down the stairs.

We didn't finish up until almost 2 hours later. ooops...

Jen ran up sometime in there too and retrieved a gift for her client from the back of the van and was also yelled at - she just ignored the "Valet Nazi".

After we wrapped it all up and got back to the van, we debated on where to have dinner. That quest began a wild goose chase that took us all the way to downtown Dallas and then back in the van for another 30+ minutes before we finally found a Cracker Barrel on the side of the highway.

Dinner was late, but it was good. :)

We got back home sometime after 1:30AM.  The drive went by relatively fast thanks to late night giddiness and great conversation.  It is a trip I will remember for a very, very long time.

Until,
D :)

Oh and the 911 call....well for the full story you could listen to this week's episode (due out Tuesday or Wednesday) of Musing Mommies... :)

Already Gone

Once again the days are slipping away and I keep forgetting to blog.  It's not really that things have been busy - actually, I think it's been just the opposite.  Starting this weekend though I am going to be completely swamped until Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to it for sure because it is going to be incredibly fun. But I know I will have my days where I will be pulling my hair out in frustration from one thing or another.

I have been trying to tie up loose ends all week; answer emails, follow up with clients, etc. But of course there are quite a few things I am forgetting and missing and putting off. I really wish there was a way to carve out just 2 solid hours a day for me to work completely uninterrupted. I could get sooooo much done. But the constant bombardment of questions and needs and general chaos from the short people around here keeps me from getting anything productive done. And don't even think about suggesting I get up early - HAHA! 6:45 is too early as it is! We don't usually make it to bed until 11 or 11:30.  With any less sleep I really won't be able to function.

Last weekend Grammy and Happy came to town to spend a few days here on their property for their anniversary.  The boys got to see them for a little while one week day afternoon, and then on Saturday they got to spend most of the afternoon out on the property.  Hubby and I got a "date afternoon" of sorts and were able to run errands and hang out in general peace and quiet. It was very nice, but I kept finding myself fretting over doing fun things with my husband instead of working on all my chores and stuff I have been wanting to do around the house. I go for weeks without getting the things I want done. It is extremely frustrating to put off stuff like gardening and repotting plants for weeks on end.

*sigh* my poor garden.

The okra is so tall now that I can't reach the top. I would guess the plants are about 10 feet tall at this point. I have to bend them down to harvest the okra that are still popping up daily.  And now, there are about 10 new little okra plants that have sprung from the ground around the old timers and they are producing too. It is insane! Good thing I like okra...

The peppers are producing like mad now too but have unfortunately succumbed to pests. I just can't keep them healthy.  And I need to pull them but I just can't find the time. I needed to plant for the fall LAST MONTH and I just couldn't do it.  Either I was busy on the weekend of Hubby was. We are hardly home at the same time anymore.

The basil is about done. The plants are getting woody and the new growth is bolting almost instantly. I cut a bunch of it tonight but I don't know if I will have time to wash it and lay it out to dry. (of course I could be doing it right now but I am choosing to blog instead)

I bought some dirt for the other bed, but I think I am going to add it and then cover the whole bed with a thick layer of newspapers and plastic and let it rest until next spring. At this point, if I plant anything it will get too cold before anything can be established. I will probably secure a nice section of the currently growing bed for some garlic since it will not be ready until spring anyway.

So that is the garden situation. Kinda got off topic there - what I really wanted to post was a funny from Kiddo when he and his brother were staying with Grammy and Happy.

Happy had left some cash out on a table or counter and Kiddo walked up and swiped some of it.  Happy told him to give that back. Kiddo said he just found it.  Happy said something (playfully) to the effect of "That's my money and you stole it." My charming son replied:

"I didn't steal it, Happy. I'm not a bank robber. I am a tax collector."

Happy gave him a quarter for such a clever response. ;-)

Until,
D :)