Going grey

yes, I am going gray also, but that is beside the point. How do you spell gray anyway? Is there a correct spelling? Grey looks cooler than gray.

Anyway, as a tribute to the man who has proposed that we paint our house gray, that we paint our walls gray, and that we all four just start wearing varying shades of gray at all times - today, I am making the blog gray.

I am still looking for a cooler blog template, but I have not quite figured the whole process out yet. So in the meantime we will be gray or grey, whichever is correct.


...and I am doing much better since my catharsis last evening. thanks for nice words.

Clinging to Labor Day

If I am going to be honest, which I always try to do, I would have to say that I am just hanging in there these days.

I have found that August is historically a terrible time for me since moving to Houston. I am just so tired of the bloomin' heat, the mosquitos, and the ridiculous amounts of sunscreen I have to put on myself and my children. I want Fall to come so bad, but oh wait, I don't live in kansas anymore and it ain't coming until the middle of october.

plus there are the boys. And I adore my boys - as you have hopefully picked up on throughout this blog. But these boys make me tired, both physically and mentally. I am saying things to them lately that I don't want to say, and doing things I don't want to do, but i feel like I am just out of mama steam. I can't think of anything to teach frank, and I am sick of our books, but I am too lazy to go to the library. I want to turn off the tv forever, but then a few hours later I really want frank to watch Sesame Street so that I can have quiet for an hour. I want to be outdoorsy and say hell with the heat, let's just sweat and not care. But I care!!!! I hate it! and i find it so difficult to fake happy outdoors when i am miserable and Ford is eating leaves and I am pulling rocks out of his mouth.

And I cannot pretend that this is all about the weather and two small children. Have I mentioned that my precious myrna is leaving me to go to Mexico? As many who have lived away from family for extended periods of time will know, your friends become your local family. The Martinez family is as close to blood to me as you can get, and Jesus is taking them to Mexico to minister and live indefinitely. I have not cried about this. I teared up about some boots that were out of stock the other day, but I have been fighting the real tears because I am afraid that they won't stop once i let them fly. I don't cry much, so when I do, it is just not pretty. It usually involves snot, a splotchy nose and that dry heaving kind of sobbing. but they are leaving in less than a week and the crying is inevitable.

So all that to say, I am clinging to Labor Day. I wait for Labor Day each year. It is when I see my dearest friends from college. It is when I hand off the babies for 3 days and collapse. It is the time each year when I re-assess the last year, and mentally plan ahead how I want the next year to look as a mom and wife. It is a time when I laugh a lot and rejoice in feeling fully known and loved by some kick-ass Christian women from Kansas.

Cleaning up

a typical collection of the toys that I pick up from the kitchen each day. That is a cicada in the jelly jar....and that is some good jelly by the way...i mean before it was empty and had a cicada exoskeleton in it.

Bullies

this morning, I dropped the boys off at the childcare room at the YMCA. As I turned the corner to go up the stairs to the workout area, I was stopped by two men. They were standing face to face in front of the stairs, blocking my way.

"Oh. did you want to go up there?" one says to me.
E: "well, I was hoping to"
Man: "well, its gonna cost you."
E: "really? how much?"
Other man: "One quarter to get by. That's how we make our money."

Then, while he was still talking, I slipped between them before they could stop me. There was some commotion and shouting from behind, but I just kept on walking. And then I started cracking up...Both of the men were skinnier than michael and at least 85 years old.

Lunchtime

2 days

the milk jug fish-whales for children's church. Anke made the Jonah bean bags

Sunday morning in the playroom

getting ready for church

some seriously good blueberry muffins for Sunday school (thank you, Joy the Baker)

Frank's first day of school 2009

he said he was "too tired to stand up" for the pictures...but not too goofy

Ford and Mama at work while frank is at school

two sleeping boys at the end of a busy two days

We like yogurt

My belly button has never looked the same after pushing out a 9 pound 7 ounce baby. It used to be a cute, deep little innie. Now it is more of a floppy-loose hybrid. The other day, I was cleaning it, and I just couldn't get it clean enough to my liking. I couldn't see it, but I could feel a tiny speck of sand or dirt in there. I kept picking at it until I made it bleed. Oops. And then I just laid in bed and began remembering all of the funny beliefs that I used to have as a kid...

-I believed that if you ran the vacuum over the vacuum cord while it was on, that you would go deaf.
-I believed that Greg Louganis was Greg Brady in a second career.
-I believed that if you dug out all the tiny specks in your belly button that you would not be able to have a baby one day.
-I thought you would die if you put any object - except bread - into the toaster, whether it was plugged in or not.

I realize now, that those were silly ideas, but it doesn't stop me from making new kinds of crazy associations in my brain now. For instance:

-I do believe that if you pick your nose too much, that you will stretch out the cartilage and your nose will get bigger and more bulbous as you age.
-I do believe that the constant cleaning of my son's ears has prevented them from ever having ear infections.
-I have a feeling that if you drink hot coffee, followed by cold water, that it will stain your teeth
-And I am certain that large open stores such as Target, Marshall's and thrift stores all have something in the air that triggers my body to have to go poop.

I would love to hear about your crazy beliefs, whether as a child, or now. You can post them as anonymous comments if you like to keep your anonymity. But you could also put your name, because really, nobody reads this blog but us, and I like comments.

Here now is a poem about yogurt:

we like it plain
we like it fruity
we like it fatty
we like it skinny
we like it every which way -
except with aspartame.
we don't like aspartame

well, that isn't really a poem, but you get the point. Here are the pictures.

These last two pictures of frank are his interpretation of "what grown-ups with beards look like" - apparently grown-ups are very serious and flex their muscles a lot.

I am such a loser

Or looser. I can't believe that I wrote an entire entry on losing, spelling it "loosing." you must have read that whole thing, thinking, "why didn't she spellcheck?" Well I never have been able to spell that word. it just doesn't look right to me, and blogger doesn't do grammar checks apparently. thank you, michael for stepping in when i need you.

Question for smarter people...

How do i make a cute picture/collage/cool looking title box on this blog?

Fordy

That's what Frank and I call him.
He is preciously amazing. Sometimes I feel like sweet Ford gets the shaft in ol' mama's blog.
I feel bad about that. So today I want to tell you about this 8 month old baby that rocks my world.
Forgive me in advance, for going on as I do.

He is heavy, over 22 pounds. He is squishy when you squeeze him...deliciously squishy. He always smells good, and i don't bathe him very much. I like to smooch his big soft cheeks. His belly is ticklish. He will eat anything you give him, even if he doesn't like it.

He crawls all over this house - fast - but he prefers to be in the same room as me. He puts every piece of trash on the floor (which ashamedly there seems to be too much of) in his mouth. Daily, I use the finger sweep to scoop out a piece of paper or plastic wrapper from a fruit snack bag out of his mouth.

He likes it when Frank plays rough with him. I worry - he laughs. He is fascinated with everything he sees. He doesn't cry. You will not see him get upset unless he is pretty seriously hurt, exhausted, or starving.

When you change his diaper on the floor, he loves to flip over, naked and get away as fast as he can. He laughs when you catch him. He does not babble all the time, like some babies i have known, but when he does - it is loud, loud, loud. He will be heard.

here he is making a daring escape across the kitchen floor

Today, he sat in front of my full length mirror for about 15 minutes, fascinated. He would laugh at himself, wave his arms and bounce up and down. He crawled into that mirror, head-on, full force at least 3 times trying to get that other baby. He then spent the rest of the time looking behind the mirror and crawling into the bathroom next to the mirror to see if he could find that baby. It was awesome. He would then just come back to the mirror and be so excited to find himself again. Ford is always full of joy.


I read this post thinking, "wow. that sounds like every baby, you boring lady," but I promise that he is something special. If you want proof, come on over and babysit (after you are put through my security screening of course). You can check these boys out for a night, or a weekend. They will be happy to entertain you, and then we can finally go see a movie. I heard that Slumdog Millionaire is a good movie.... Just kidding... but not really.... we don't get out much, people.

concession

Entering the Mad Men Casting Call contest reminds me of when I used to run for student council office, or when I would try out for drill team back in my adolescent years. The running part is kind of fun and new and different, but the losing is just awkward and embarrassing.

And let's just get it out there: I ALWAYS LOSE. It's cool. No self-absorbed pity parties here. I just lose a lot and I am wrong most of the time. Don't ever believe me if I tell you that that guy on tv is the same guy that we saw in a movie 3 years ago. Michael can verify - I am wrong 97% of the time.

After 31 years of losing, I am accustomed to the feeling. It is humbling and character building. I would much rather lose the Mad Men contest and have time to reflect on what sweet, incredible friends helped me try and win. Myrna the master artist and photographer, Shawna, Maggie, Jane, my dad and mom, Robyn, Josh, TJ and all you other faithful voters. I would totally rather loose and be able to thank you all than if I had won and got a big head and went to Hollywood, and once I was there, they realized that the show really needed me to be Don Draper's new, permanent secretary/ future love interest. And I would be that wonderful, mysterious woman on the show that wouldn't give him the time of day, which drove him crazy because he just couldn't have her - until maybe the last season.......

well anyway...i would rather lose and know how cool my friends and family are than win and have all those headaches of small scale stardom....200th or so out of 3975...not too bad a loss, considering my history.

I am so glad that none of you saw me in those high school drill team tryouts. Now that was embarrassing.

Summer songs

I have been wanting to share my summertime playlist that I made a few weeks back, but I didn't know how to link songs to the blog, and I would rather give you a way to hear the songs than just list them. But I didn't know how to do that because I am slow with learning how to write a blog.

I almost wrote just now that "I didn't do that because "I am retarded." That is a phrase we used when we were in elementary and middle school, and for some reason, I have never been able to break myself of that phrase. It is not a nice thing to say, and I wanted to publicly confess that I have been wrong in saying it. When we were in Albuquerque last week, I was getting up from the table of Weck's restaurant, talking to michael accross the room and i was commenting on something dumb that I had done and said, "I am so..." and then I looked and directly behind him was this precious boy who obviously had a developmental disability. And he was beautiful and had the sweetest family. They were all enjoying themselves at their lunch, and I almost said that offensive comment right in their ears. I was convicted that the Lord was trying to show me how wrong of a statement that is, and that I have said it way too much. So... I am telling you - so that you can remind me if I say it in front of you, that I don't want to say that anymore.

anyway.

here are some of the songs that I have been enjoying this summer:

• Kodachrome by Paul Simon
• Sunny Afternoon by the Kinks
• Fly Me to the Moon by Julie London
• The One on the Right is the One on the Left by Johnny Cash
• Johnny Cash's entire children's album
• Sky Blue Sky, Heavy Metal Drummer, and You Never Know by Wilco
• Green Summer Lawn by the Vigilantes of Love
• Jorom/Monkey Yanga on The Rough Guide to the Music of Nigeria and Ghana
  
• Cuban Pete by Tito Puente
• John the Revelator by Blind Willie Johnson
  
• Solider by the Blind Boys of Alabama
• Girl by Beck
• I'll Fly Away by Etta James

and look...I figured out how to link some of them to YouTube. I am gettin' smarter all the time.

Frank's song today

"I'm gonna be a man...
I'm gonna be a man.
I'm gonna be a big man.
I'm gonna be a man...
I'm gonna ride in the front seat of daddy's truck.
and I'm gonna be a man.
I'm gonna use the grown-up scissors,
because I'm gonna be a man...
I'm going to go to a job, so that I can make the
money...
and
I'm gonna be a MAN...."

Oh yes...the blog

So sorry it has been so long.
First there was the Mad Men contest, then the trip to Colorado.
It has been hard to keep up.

Durango, Colorado is a great town. We spent a wonderful, busy week with my family.
We enjoyed everything but the heat. We went to escape the heat, and found it waiting for us with open arms when we got out of the airport.

At least there was no humidity. My hair is so nice when there is no humidity. I look like a different person. But of course, the trade off is the dry skin. which would you rather have: dry, itchy skin that wrinkles prematurely...or fuzzy, frizzy hair ALL the time? that is a tough one.

Highlights of Colorado:
1. Tubing the Animas river with michael, will and my dad...that is until Michael's tube exploded about 5 minutes into the water. Remind me to tell you about that one sometime - if you want to laugh hard, go tubing with the calloways.
2. Watching my mom lead the Hokey Pokey and Simon says with her grandkids
3. Eating full-fat, true banana splits with my dad after the kids went to bed at night.
4. Doing one of those bungee/trampoline things that throw you up in the air and make your stomach drop out your pants...and then making frank do it.
5. Watching my husband and dad walk all over Durango looking for free wireless networks so they could vote for me in the Mad Men contest multiple times per day.
6. Durango Joe's cappucino
7. Looking at each other after riding in an open car on a 3 hour train ride to Silverton. We were covered in ashes and soot - and looked like chimney sweeps and circus performers
8. Salami and stinky cheese night
9. Having my sweet niece call me "mommy" then "daddy" and then finally settling on "Ant"
10. Getting to Mesa Verde after a very long drive and hiking down a steep path with our stroller and two kids, then hearing frank say: "i have to go poopy"

but what made us laugh at the end was in the car on the way home, when frank says out of nowhere: "Are we going to our house? Do we live in a crack house?"

Thanks LaLa and Poppee for a great vacation!

photos by frank

this cracks me up. my trash can - overflowing. why does he love trash so much?

our window after taking the boards off, after hurricane ike - we'll fix it someday

our plumbing issues. thanks for capturing all our best, frank

frank: 3 years and 8 months old