Tuesday, May 21, 2013

more flotsam, more jetsam

One of our favorite people decided to shave her head at one of our favorite breweries for one of our favorite charities so it was a no-brainer that we were going.  Beer + baldies = I'm totally reaching into my wallet and digging out whatever I haven't already spent on Taco Bell to whoever has their had outstretched.

candi st b's


Candi rocked the bald head something kind of awesome.  I'm not as awesome as her but I will pay her to be awesome for me.  Daniel, still growing out his hair from St. Baldrick's the month before, decided he didn't want Candi to be alone in being bald, so he decided to jump up in a chair and get a mohawk.  We have saved $22 in haircuts this year thanks to St. B's.

dan mohawk

We went back to King's Dominion because I got a new phone and a hankering to ride a roller coaster with it.  Said phone lived to dial another day.



I love that Daniel goes all Boyz II Men at the beginning of this song and gets down on bended knee.  I also realize I have failed somewhere as a parent when my kid needs to read the lyrics to the Itsby Bitsy Spider.  Natalie goes on the roller coaster that I refuse to get on because it made me blind and not in a fun Manfred Mann-kind of way, but more of like a HOLY NUTBALLS, WHERE DID MY VISION DISAPPEAR TO??-kind of way.  But I'll happily put my seven-year-old on it and hope real hard that blood never shoots out her eyeballs.  As long as she comes off smiling, that means either she didn't go blind or that she doesn't really mind being blind.  Both ways mean I'm a good mom.  Eve and her Nana are just happy to ride such high-thrill rides as the Carousel.  Over and over and over.  Since that was too intense for me (not kidding- rides that go in circles make me all pukey and I turn gray and my eyeballs pop out Beetlejuice-style), I opted to join Natalie and my dad on some free-fall here comes death bungee ride.  They just kept pulling us up and up and up.  And then up some more.  And then Natalie doesn't want to be on this anymore and I completely understand the feeling.  And then I'm in charge of pulling the rip cord which is a ridiculous thing to be in charge of because you will not want to pull it but there is no other way to get down.  And then we fall from the sky to our deaths until the cord is pulled taut and we swing back and forth over people and I'm amazed that I'm not showering them with pee because OMG DID YOU SEE HOW HIGH WE FELL FROM THE SKY?

I think my speed is now officially more on the "let's take the kids to the park and let them climb on things that don't require a you may die waiver" side.

nat park

eve park

dan park

This I can do all day.  Plus, I really like playgrounds.  I can totally out-climb every single kid out there.  And then I show them my muscles and grunt out an emphatic YEAH.  As in, YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT I BEAT YOU TO THE TOP OF THE SLIDE.  WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?  I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT YOUR GUARDIAN IS LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

We like to throw things around here and sometimes it's almost as fun if you're supposed to be throwing things.  Tantrums, full glasses of milk, bocce balls...we throw them all.  But sometimes I start giggling uncontrollably when someone can't find their blue balls and realize I have the maturity of a prepubescent boy.  Blue balls coming out of someone's mouth is funny whether they are 5 or 50.  And just re-reading that last sentence made me have to go take a pee-break.

nat bocce

I like the angry old man face Dan is sporting here.  I think that's what I look like when I wake up and small people immediately start asking me for food.

dangry old man

Where the hell is Eve throwing that ball?  WHO HAS SEEN THE BLUE BALLS?

where the hell is eve throwing that ball

No worries.  Nat will climb up in the tree and look.

nat tree hugger

And then shortly after that, her hair will get stuck in a branch and she will beg for help while I watch her from the hammock and lecture her on the importance of using detangler because Mommy is not climbing up any tree in this century unless she's an unwilling participant in the Hunger Games.  And even then, I'd probably just make angry old man faces at the other tributes and say something about their blue balls before they chuck a spear through my chest.  And then I'd look down as I bleed out and would be all like, "I kind of expected this to smell more like nacho cheese."  And then there'd be a white light and I'd go toward it but it's really just my bedside lamp that's been turned on and Suzanne Pleschette is in bed next to me and wants to know why I'm always talking in my sleep about Taco Bell.

Dot dot dot [insert segue into next event here] dot dot dot

Eve and I went to NC State's Farm Days and OMG I WANT TWO.

omg i want two

I want them because they are so freaking adorable and seriously have not even had any thoughts about how tasty they will be when they are all grown up and not as cute.

Here is Eve milking a REAL LIVE COW.  I only have two memories from preschool: one is having the chicken pox while sitting around a large table with other children before I threw up all over it (which may be two completely different memories now that I think about it), and the second is milking a cow just like this.  We have very similar preschool experiences in that we were both 4-5 year old white girls with blond hair milking cows except Eve never had chicken pox and I never had cancer.

eve milking A REAL LIVE COW

And at the end of Farm Days, after you've touched all the bunnies and goats and turkeys and can't possibly have scrubbed your hands well enough to make sure you don't end up on the news in some sad petting zoo e.coli outbreak story, you get free NC State Ice Cream.  Which is kind of like the end-all be-all of all things iced and creamy.  Even though no one will be home with me next year to go to Farm Days, I'm going back by myself.  For ice cream.  And quite possibly to steal some baby animals.  But mostly the ice cream.  And I don't even like ice cream.  Or baby animals.  That's how awesome NC State is.

nc state ice cream

Animals outside of this arena are just bleh to me.  Like this prince.

not really a prince

For some reason, my children keep bringing me Ziploc bags of random species that I really would rather not waste a freezer bag on.  Freezer bags are expensive.  Go find a mayonnaise jar.  Natalie considered moving the frog into the hermit crab cage, seeing as there was now an occupancy since Eve's crab met a very timely death (I had no idea that if you fed and watered hermit crabs, they would live more than two weeks).  But then she saw me make my angry old man face and decided it was probably a bad idea because frogs and crabs have been archenemies since the dawn of time, like Jesus and the dinosaurs.

Sometimes we need to get rid of a kid for a few days in order to appreciate how awesome they are and most definitely not to go through their room and give away all their toys, even if it will make the qi flow much better and just generally not be so crazy dumpster town.  I drive to meet my mother-in-law halfway and she takes someone special who is not about to lose all his toys that he never plays with anymore but cannot live without said toys covering the entire carpet in his room and OUCH I STEPPED ON ANOTHER BUZZ LIGHTYEAR HEAD THAT WAS MOUNTED TO A LEGO WHY DO I KEEP WALKING IN THIS ROOM BAREFOOT?  I'm not sure if the employees at this particular Food Lion where we meet and use the bathroom find our arrangement odd, this mother who brings in three kids and leaves with only two, giving the boy with the blue magic marker mustache, goatee, and eyebrows to the older woman while keeping both the ballerina (complete in leotard, tutu, and ballet slippers) and the other girl who spent the last twenty miles of the car ride making pretzel mush in her mouth before covering herself to look as though she vomited and used her dress as a towel.  This is the longest track-out ever.  At least there is a tree to climb on in the parking lot so I can say I got them outside to play.

eve tree

After maybe I donated like every toy on the boy's floor to a needy mother who had yet to step on a Lego barefooted herself, we drove to spend the weekend with Mimaw and reunite with Daniel, who probably wouldn't have missed me so much if he only knew how his room got so clean while he was away.    Matt's mom had a new pad of paper waiting for me for when I need to send a note to school explaining why my child was absent:

fo sho i do

Then Matt and I went out for an anniversary dinner of soooshi.

soooooshi

And I only post that picture because I really like pictures of food.  Someday, I will look back at these entries and appreciate how much my children have grown and OH THAT'S HOW I GOT FAT.

On this visit, my sister-in-law informed me that I needed a makeover and the next thing I knew, we were drinking beer and there were foils in my hair at the kitchen table and then you have to put your head upside down in the sink after all that fun.  That's harder than it looks.  But my hair did look good, even if I couldn't see it straight for an hour or so after that.

Once everyone was home, Eve started complaining that her mouth hurt.  After whining about it forever, Matt told me to look in her mouth and turns out she wasn't bluffing after all.  There was a big ol' canker sore on the side of her tongue.  I know from having suffered from countless canker sores in my life, which are not cold sores as my husband always calls them because STOP CALLING THEM THAT BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE HERPES, that they are caused by stress or trauma.  And what in the world does five-year-old Eve have to stress about?  She definitely must have bitten her tongue.  So Eve gets yogurt and applesauce for dinner.  Which means Nat and Dan want yogurt and applesauce for dinner.  Which means Nat and Dan start whining that their mouths are sore.  They whine like this for a couple days and we tell them to be quiet and eat what's on their plates because we know they are big fat fakers.  Until one day Matt actually takes a look into their mouths and low and behold, they have canker sores, too.  And then you kind of feel like a crappy mom for a second before you remember the story of the boy who cried wolf so basically they brought this on themselves.  And it sure is weird that they all have sores in their mouths at the same time after never having them before, but I guess it's just some strange virus they shared with each other because you know they are all up in each other's business.

A week goes by and they are all better and I forget it ever happened.  Then the preschool director sends an email to all parents with the subject line "Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease."  Ugh.  Now we just got over these stupid canker sores and someone sent their kid into school with something that I have no idea what it is but it sounds serious and annoying and there is even a link to the CDC with information about it.  Now Eve is going to bring it home and spread it around the house.  The article says she's going to get a fever.  Then she's going to get a rash and/or blisters on her hands and feet.  This is going to be double annoying times three which is like six times annoying.  Then she's going to get sores in her mouth.  The article even has pictures of what these sores look like.  And they look a lot like what my kids just had.

Crap.  I think we sent patient zero to preschool.  My bad on that outbreak.  But in my defense, without the rash and fever, my kids really just had Mouth Disease.  And don't all kids kind of already have that?

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